


Persona: Unconscience

by Waggleton



Category: Original Work, Persona 3, Persona 4, Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Angst, Case Fic, Dreams and Nightmares, Food, Gen, Horror, Linked Music, Massachusetts, Mild Sexual Content, New England, Nightmares, Original Flavor, United States
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-04
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2018-08-28 23:43:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 43
Words: 161,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8467618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waggleton/pseuds/Waggleton
Summary: Julieanne Bousher, a 17 year old student from Tennessee, has just suffered through the worst years of her life. Realizing she needs a change of pace, scenery, and schools, her parents decide to send her to Lydon, Massachusetts, a small island town boasting high tourism rates and a great quality of life.  Despite the change in scenery, she doesn't expect anything new to happen - just the same kind of treatment and life she's had to live with for the past three years.When she starts dreaming of a strange place called the 'Velvet Room', though, she starts to think differently.-Month: SeptemberCurrent Arc: O, Brave New World!Currently on Hiatus - see  Pastebin





	1. Velvet Underground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   
> 

 

#### Saturday, July 26th

It was a [dream](https://youtu.be/QfaKWAs3ekw).

I _hope_ it was a dream.

It felt so real – that was the weird thing. It was all black at first, but I was still able to feel a soft material under my legs and my hands. It felt smooth and plushy, and was probably stupidly expensive. Not that it mattered who could afford it in a dream.

I tried looking through the darkness, at my legs, at whatever I was sitting on, at _anything_ , but it was all that same complete darkness. I tried to pinch myself, since my brain probably screwed up at dreaming, along with a lot of other things, but as soon as I found a good tight part of my skin, there was a noise that sounded throughout the room. Something that sounded like a small semi-auto pistol cocking, with more echo, like it was infinitely far away. I saw lights ahead of me – four of them, spread out in a line in the darkness. It felt...weird. Like I was being watched, or presented, or...something. They shone down in front of me, revealing the entire room.

I was sitting on a light purple couch, one without arms, for some reason, in a room covered in drapes, colored an unearthly blue – the kind of blue that you only see at the bottom of an ocean or in the Artic sky. There were a few bookshelves on the side of the room, made out of black wood, with those books inside that same strange blue color. On the opposite side of the room where I was sitting was a dark purple – maybe black, actually – armchair, and behind it was…darkness. It was like the light simply ended behind the chair – or, maybe more possible, there wasn’t a wall behind it. There was a small table in the middle of the room, about the height of halfway up my leg – and since I’m, like, five feet tall, it was pretty short. The floor of where I was didn’t seem to exist – well, I could feel a floor with my shoe, something hard keeping me from falling, but underneath it was transparent. I guess it was glass. Everything that touched the floor – the legs of my couch, the table, the armchair – all seemed to extend downwards into the darkness. The bookshelves and drapes seemed to go on forever.

I looked around for anything to do, since this wasn’t a fun dream without people to talk to and shout gibberish at me, or giant monsters to run from, or guns to shoot. Anything would be better than what was going on in my real life. I prepared to pinch myself again – finding that one good spot on my skinny arm was easier to do in light, but I heard that same cocking noise from above, and when I looked up to see what was going on, and I jumped.

In front of me were two people. Two men. One of them was…actually, I wasn’t sure if he was even _human_ . His face was round, almost spherical, and his eyes were bulging out of his skull, bloodshot and cartoon-y. His nose was huge, jutting out of his face like a missile, and the only hairs on his head were a unibrow and a shaggy strip of white around the back of his skull. He was wearing a black suit that fit his scrawny frame perfectly. I yelped when I saw him – he looked crazy, and that big grin he had...didn't help me think to well of him. The other man – who looked more like a human, thankfully, was absurdly tall and bulky-looking, his jaw square and manly, his hair short on his head like a military cut, and he had a large scar on his forehead, straight and narrow. His face was...weathered and tired-looking. Silent and sturdy. He was wearing a blue sort of button-up shirt with circles on it, a black bowtie, and black pants, and he was standing straight, with his arms crossed, looking straight forward, eyes closed. After seeing these two guys, I did what anybody else would do – pinch myself until I woke up. It didn’t work. Why wasn’t it working? I didn’t know what these dudes would do. I didn’t even know why I’m _here!_ I just had to wake up! Wake up, wake up wake up wake up _wake up wak_

“W _elcome to the Velvet Room._ ” the creepy weirdo said, his voice calm and smooth, but still…I don’t know. It sounded like a cartoon, inhuman, creepily calm.

I looked around, trying to figure out who he was talking to. Did anyone else show up with these two guys? I wish it wasn’t me. I hoped it wasn’t me.

It was me.

“My name is Igor. It is a _pleasure_ to meet you, young lady,” he – it – Igor – whatever waved his hands, showing off the place I was in. “This is a room that exists in the planes between dimensions, between Heaven and Earth, the real and the imaginary….only a select few may enter, those chosen, those awaiting a spectacular fate. Now…may I ask for a name?”

I gulped a little bit. I didn’t know what this ‘Igor’ dude wanted. But…this was a dream. This couldn’t exist. Nobody looked like that. It didn’t matter. I chewed beneath my lip for a second before answering with my name. “Julie…Boucher…” I mumbled, sort of hoping that he’d hear it.

“I see…well, now that you have arrived, it is time for your sessions to begin. Consider this your first appointment. Now, how about we play a little game? To get to…know each other better…”

He reached into the inside of his suit with a gloved hand and pulled out a deck of blue cards, then it…just…disappeared in a flash of bright light, and three of the cards appeared on the short table. Dreams can do this sort of stuff, I guess. Though, if it was a dream, then how come I felt the light he made hit my eyes so hard? I rubbed my eyelids a little bit, feeling warmth on the flesh.

“Tarot cards. Your past, your present, and your future. Three cards, three truths…admittedly, a very simple spread, but a _quite_ telling one.”

He gestured towards the first card on the table, and it flipped over without any hesitation. On it was  a drawing of something that looked like a spear pointing downward, with little spikes popping out of it – or, maybe they were flowers? I looked up at the tall man, and he was still looking ahead with his eyes closed..

“Your past…the reversed Hierophant. A sign of rebelling against a norm, or against a society, and to examine how you handle situations…”

How'd he know what it was without opening his...

I sighed and nodded. I shouldn't be trying to make sense of this.

The card slowly fell onto the table, and he gestured towards the second card. It flipped over and hovered in the air a little bit. The card that showed was…a skull on a door. That...wasn’t very good. But...I shouldn't let a fake card get in the way of...

Who am I kidding? This is a nightmare.

“Present…Death," he chuckled as I tried to shrink up in the chair. "Be not afraid...it is simply a card representing the verge of a transformation, a transition, a new chapter. _Very_ interesting.”

The card gently went back onto the table, and Igor flipped up the final card. It was an old Roman soldier in a chariot.

“Your future…the Chariot,” Igor stated. I could’ve figured that out. “To stay vigilant towards your goal, to gather and use all resources to get where you wish to go…”

Igor waved his hand calmly, and all the cards disappeared in a flash of blue light. “Curious…while you have had troubles with society and tried to revolt in the past, you will soon start a new chapter in your life. A new goal will present itself in the future, where you must become strong to achieve it,” he closed his eyes for a second. His toothy smile was still there, creepily enough, and when he opened his eyes, it felt like he was staring right into my soul with my beady pupils, like he was trying to figure out if what he said was true. “I look forward to our sessions in the future. You seem like quite the…intriguing patient.

 He extended his hand toward the large man behind him. "This is my compatriot, Boris. He will assist in your journey, much like I will. Now, Boris, do you wish to introduce yourself?"

‘Boris’ opened his eyes, revealing a pair of bright and almost shining yellow irises. He looked at me hard, like he was sizing me up. “Hello,” he grunted, his voice heavy and low, like a truck engine. “I am happy to meet you.” He didn’t smile, just grimaced. At me.

“I hope this will set the tone for sessions to come, however, I’m afraid we’re all out of time for this meeting,” Igor said, still without any emotion in her voice. “Though, I assure you, we will meet again. We will see if your tarot predictions come true - and they always do. Now, Boris, if you may do the honors…”

Boris nodded, and a long black rope descended from the ceiling, though when I looked up at it, it seemed to just have come out from in-between the seams in the drapes. Boris grabbed ahold of the rope with a single ungloved hand, and slowly pulled it downwards, like he was ringing church bells, and, with that same cocking noise, all the lights turned off.

* * *

 

My eyes burst open. I felt another soft material under my hands, but…cheaper. In front of me was a grey cushion. In my lap was a self-help book for teens that my mom bought me for reading material. On the cushion next to me was a book on the weapons of the World Wars that I had brought as reading material, placed above a black MilSurp backpack.

Wait, why am I acting surprised? I know [where](https://youtu.be/xozfkEPxDqk) I am.

I looked to my left, and I saw a wall rising above the street, with trees planted on the ground above it. You’d never see that kind of scenery in Tennessee. Maybe Maryland or Virginia or New York or Massachusetts. Not that I'd know, but still, it narrowed it down a little bit, I guessed. I couldn’t tell where the sun was in the sky. I forgot how long I've been on the bus, but I was able to take comfort that it was the last stretch between here and Massachusetts. My phone in my pocket probably had the answers, so I pulled it out and unlocked it. My mother had sent me a few texts at 0900 and 1100. It was now 1300. They were fairly simple;

**How is the bus? Did you get any sleep? Did you eat?**

**Please send pictures!**

I sighed. **Pictures of what? Bus?** I sent back, not sure what she meant. Though, I did feel a little bit hungry…I put my phone on my armrest, and opened up my backpack. I had packed three granola bars, a bag of NUTral chili-lime peanuts, some Puppy Treats cookies, a homemade vegan pita carefully wrapped in plastic inside a tupperware container, and a few MREs of different varieties that I don’t think I could prepare on the bus without drawing some attention. I could probably rip them open and eat the chocolate bars and crackers inside, though I don’t want to ruin them until I actually eat them when I got to Massachusetts. My big, silver flask still looked like it had most of its tea in it – I wanted to make that lasted, since it would probably be the last bit of actual sunbrewed unsweetened tea I could actually get before I got to my destination.

My phone buzzed again. **Of Lydon, LOL! It’s been a while since I been there. Where are you?**

I checked my maps app. **Massachusetts** , I texted back, then I plugged in Lydon’s location on it. We were approaching a bridge in about ten minutes that would take us to the island. **45 minutes away**

**I’ll text Rowan, call me when you get dropped off**

I sent back a simple **ok** , and then looked out the window again. We were out of the recessed highway, by the looks of it. Still surrounded by trees.

I was 45 minutes away from what would probably be a really stupid year. But it’d still be better than the last six years of middle and high school.

I sighed. If only I didn’t…

I exhaled. Don’t think about that.

I read the book in my lap in order to pass the time quickly. If nothing else, it made my eyes glaze off the page. Stuff about ‘assertiveness’ and ‘depression’ and ‘bullying’. I already knew all that stuff. I’ve been through it. I’d much rather read about the world’s quietest carbine, developed by a British engineer, but I had promised Mom I’d read this whole thing before I got there. I was almost halfway through. I skipped a few pages, boring stuff about successful habits and turning in homework on time, which I never had any trouble with beforehand, but oh well. I hastily ate my pita, getting hiccups in the process – again, oh well. I felt tired, since I had only slept for what felt like four hours when I’ve been awake since 2000 last night, so I did have to struggle a little bit to keep my eyes open through the absolute banality of everything. Oh well.

At one point, I heard the wheels of the bus sound like they were going over a bridge, or something like that. Almost there.

By the time I had got to the back cover of the book and had learned absolutely nothing, we were already entering a town, with colorful brick houses, brick buildings packed closely together, trees, etc. All of them were shorter than three stories. It looked the same as a lot of towns in Tennessee, maybe less colorful and with less trees, though, and the buildings were probably older. Maybe even from the Revolutionary War, though obviously with a new coat of paint. I opened the window a little bit (though I had to get out of my seat to do it), and breathed in the smell of salt and wood bark. That was different. _Really_ different. It still didn’t make me feel better…well, maybe a little bit.

After about five or so more minutes of driving, we reached a bus station. Small, not very packed. There was only one other bus there, and it was from a different brand that I’ve never heard of. We parked underneath a plastic roof, and the door opened. I was the only person to get off, thankfully – no hustle nor bustle – and I walked into the strangely relaxing ocean-smelling air with my backpack on and two suitcases in either hand. I was the only person outside, and after a few minutes, the bus pulled out. I was waiting for someone – who, I barely knew.

I walked inside the terminal, colored clean white with a reception desk and a few vending machines, found a bench, sat down, and pulled out my phone. I had a new text message, from Rowan. I didn’t assign him a contact image yet, so I was a bit confused as to who he was before I remembered. **In front of building.**

I sighed. I literally _just_ sat down! After all that time on the bus, though...

Oh well.

I should get up.

After gathering all my junk and struggling a bit with it – as any five-foot tall girl would with suitcases that almost dragged against the ground – I walked out of the building, finding a sparse parking lot and one or two people walking around. One of them looked remarkably familiar, or, at least, I saw his picture once, and we did a few video chats, so I sort of recognized him. I guess.

He had on a polo shirt, a pair of slacks, and glasses, with his short, dark brown hair that almost matched my shade of inky black. He looked like Rowan, and remarkably friendly for a lawyer.

Rowan was looking around the parking lot next to a brown subcompact car that I had guessed was his. His eyes fell on me, grinned, and started walking towards me, like he was a friend who just happened to see me in the store. “Julie?”

I smiled, still somewhat struggling with my luggage.

“Oh, here, let me help you with that,” he said, gesturing for me to hand over the brown leather suitcase I had, and I carefully passed it over. He carried it without much effort over to his car, pressed a button on his keys, the trunk opened, and he placed it inside. “Was the trip good?”

“Long.” I responded quickly. 33 hours. No time to stop at a hotel. About an hour at each bus station along the way to sit in the corner and try not to attract the eye of anyone.

“Well, you’re going through six states…” he remarked as I put my other case inside the car’s back, and he put his hand to his chin. “Let’s see, the last time I saw you was when you were two, and…how old are you now?”

“Seventeen.” I answered, looking down. Everyone always confused me for an elementary schooler, and I always had to give that answer. I hated it, but at least he asked for my age.

“Well! It didn’t feel like that long…” he chuckled awkwardly. “That’s what happens when you grow older, I guess. How has Janice been? And Monty? Oh, sorry, your mom and dad.”

I knew what my parent’s names were. “Fine. Still in Tennessee.”

‘I see…” he paused, scratching his neck. I think he got on that I didn’t really feel like talking. “How about we get to my house, huh? I bet you’re tired and hungry. Not a good combination!” he laughed again, still awkwardly.

I nodded, and he unlocked the car using his keys. I got in, looking at the clean leather interior and the top-of-the-line electronics. Rowan entered, ignited the engine, and pulled out of the parking lot, asphalt rumbling under the tires.

“So, what has your mother been telling you about me?” he asked, innocently.

I thought for a moment, my arm resting on the armrest in the door, and my hand on my chin. I looked out the window at the old buildings, and I think I could see the ocean from where we were. Kind of neat. I felt…grumpy, for some reason. Probably just another dumb mood swing. “Not much.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s true. Janice always had the biggest mouth at the old Lydon High. Even now, she’s always telling me about what her friends did and who said what…calling me, texting me…”

Oh. I forgot to call my mom...I guess that could wait until we got to Rowan’s house.

A few minutes passed. “Are you looking forward to this year?”

I shrugged, maybe a bit apathetically.

“Well, Chelsea High is the best around, so that’s going to be miles ahead of your old school.  Especially without, uh…” he sighed, letting me mentally fill in the blanks, then resumed talking in that awkwardly happy tone. “Well, I'm sure it'll be better here. Say, uh,” he coughed awkwardly, obviously trying to get off a subject I didn't want to talk too much about. "Was there anything you wanted to know about me?"

“Uh...what do you do for work?” I mumbled, still kind of unsure. “I know you’re a lawyer…”

“Oh, I’m a family lawyer at a local firm. It’s mostly a lot of child custody and divorces, but…its good work. Good for the soul. Helping people move on from the bad parts of their lives.” I had a hard time believing him.

Another few minutes passed. We were deeper into town, I think. I couldn’t see the ocean anymore. There was a few more modern-looking buildings, mostly open-faced restaurants and stores. Still a lot of trees, and still a lot of brick. I briefly envisioned myself leaning out of the window and shooting up the windows of buildings with a 9x19mm submachine gun, preferably one with a suppressor or a bullpup configuration, but Rowan stopped my imagination with a few words.

“So, did your mom tell you you’re going to summer school?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s the tail end of it, but you’ll still be learning a fair bit. Only two classes, both around two hours long. It was my friend Naveen’s idea – he’s going to be your English teacher for your class, and probably for the school year, too. He said it’d get you used to the high scho-oh, there it is!”

He pointed out to a building that looked like a bunch of rectangles smushed together, almost surrounded on all sides by smaller buildings except for where there were parking lots, and a space across the street with more, smaller, longer buildings. There were a ton of windows, and a tall tower in the center. There was an LED – _actual LED_ – sign out front with a few messages, mostly telling me to have a good summer. I didn’t think I would, though it was sort of hard not to be impressed by it. My old school in Knoxville only had a letterboard like a fast food joint.

“Looks cool.” I mumbled again.

“That’s only half of it. They have a sports complex across the street. Like I said, it’s the best in the county by a mile or two.”

Sports complex? I've never heard of anything like that. Not that I’d use it. I never go to the games or play on any teams.

“It’s a bit of a nightmare to walk around it, honestly. Again, that’s why Naveen said you should take summer school. Plus, you’d get to meet a lot of new friends!”

I doubted that.

The town kept rolling by. He kept turning and twisting around the streets – in Tennessee, it was just straight lines. People always told me New England cities were weird. There were old wooden buildings, with long stretches of grass and trees, mixed with brick buildings with stores on the ground floor, mixed with pretty town houses colored blue and white with big front porches. Soon, the brick stores gave way to two-story townhomes, all alike, sort of like a suburb. We slowed down when we reached one, painted a calm grassy green, with a big sun room in front in lieu of a porch, and an additional story on top. He checked his mirror, then parked in a driveway next to the house. There wasn't a garage.

“Here’s home! [14 Longshore Drive](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0WW0dCMvQA),” he sighed, looked at me, and smiled. “Come on, I’ll show you around.”

He got out, I heard the trunk open, and by the time I got to the back of the car, walking in that slightly salty air, he had both of my suitcases in his hands. Good on him, I guess. I put on my backpack and followed him to the front door, which he unlocked.

The sunroom was okay. There were a few lawn chairs and a big swinging couch hanging from a frame. A lot of people in the South had them, and my family did, too. I noticed that none of the other houses had them here, though, but as if he read my mind…

“Added this room myself. Got rid of the porch. Janice always showed me yours, and I thought it looked like a really nice addition…” he set one piece of luggage down, unlocked his front door, and slowly nudged it open with his foot.

The house looked…okay. It was painted a pretty good white. To the left of the door was a stairway leading up, to the right was a living room, I think, with a sunken floor, two couches, a recliner, all three made out of blue fabric, though not the same color as the ones in me…never mind. There was aa large coffee table, a bookshelf, and a decent flat-screen in a red cabinet. Down the way a little, I could see half of a dining room table, and to the left of the living room-looking thing was more house. Rowan set my suitcases down by the stairwell and dusted his hands off on his slacks a little bit.

“This is the TV room. Well, not really a ‘room’, but…anyway…down that way is the computer room and the bathroom…” he walked down a little bit, not towards the area that he pointed out, and I followed him into what I guess was the kitchen. To the left was that dining room table, six chairs around it and a centerpiece of fruit in a bowl, and more house beyond that. To the right was a kitchen with counters going around the walls and somewhat halfway across the floor, a stainless steel refrigerator, and a clean, flat oven. There were a few windows along the wall that showed a small lawn, along with a glass door. “Pretty nice, huh? Usually keep the fridge stocked with some good stuff. And I cook every night. Try to, at least.” He chuckled a little bit, then walked down, back towards the stairwell, picked up my suitcases, and started walking up the stairs. I did, too.

The upstairs was a long hallway, with four doors inside. Rowan pointed to the one at the far end of the hallway. “There’s the other bathroom…and this is your room.” He opened a door on the right side of the hallway, and inside was a completely clean bedroom painted this egg-yolk yellow color. At the far end of the room was my bed, long side against the wall, with a dresser against it, another one next to the door, a hamer in the corner, and a window that looked out onto the street and directly at another house. There was an older TV on a square cabinet, and a blue bean bag on the ground. I can’t remember the last time I sat in one of those. Rowan set my stuff on the bed, and then smiled. “Go ahead and unpack. I’ll try to get lunch set up,” he was almost out the door when he poked himself back in. “Oh, also, Naveen, that English teacher I told you about, he’ll be around in a little bit to drop off a textbook for you and catch you up to speed on what you’ll be talking about in class. Come downstairs when you’re done!” he smiled again, and left, not closing the door. He seemed like a cool guy to talk to. I mean, if he’s who I’m staying with…it…might not be too bad.

I went to work unpacking everything. I had brought mostly shirts and nice pants, and only two pairs of jeans, along with two jackets of different thickness. I didn’t know how bad the New England winter would be, but this might have to do. The few books I brought with me, mostly historical picture galleries and a blank journal my mom bought for me, went on top of the dresser. I put my laptop on the floor next to the TV, near the only easily accessible power strip, along with the charger.

I still felt like…this mixture of anger and boredom and annoyance at everything. Every little thing. The sun was too bright. The walls of my room were ugly. The bed didn’t seem very…actually, no, it was spongy. I liked spongy.

I sat on the bed for a little bit.

An entire year here.

I looked out the window of the room for a few minutes. I could barely sea blue ocean above the trees.

Welcome to Lydon, I guess…


	2. Go Mental

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Today I did nothing. It's not worth noting anymore.

After everything was empty, I walked downstairs and was greeted with the smell of something heating up in the oven. It smelled like…pizza? I headed to the kitchen – thank God this place was relatively easy to navigate – and I saw Rowan on his phone. He looked up at me like he had just remembered to say something. “Oh, Julie, I forgot to say, but I got you a present! It’s out by the house. Come on.”

He headed out of the kitchen, motioning for me to follow him. We walked out into the still very nice-smelling air, followed the concrete path to the driveway, and gestured to a silver, probably aluminum bicycle with squishy-looking black handlebars and a comfy-looking seat. It wasn’t competition grade or anything, but it still looked really good!

“I usually go to work around six in the morning, so I can’t take you to summer school. Can’t really drive you around placed except on the weekends, either…” he rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.  “And, unless you want to get a learner’s permit that you can only use for a year, this is probably your best bet. Do…do you like it?”

“Yeah!” I said. I can’t remember the last time I actually had a bike, or any reason to ride it around. Well, I still didn’t have a reason, but riding around on an island would probably look nicer than riding around in the suburbs of Knoxville. “Can I ride it?”

“Hm. Naveen should be around in a few minutes. I don’t want to keep him waiting, so…well, tell you what, a big settlement case just came in Friday, and I think the head of the firm is going to call me in tomorrow to help with it. You can ride around the town then!”

I…was that a good idea? “But…what if I get lost or something? And what if someone gets into the house?”

He moved his lips around. “Hm. Well, I’ll leave it up to your judgement. Anyway, are you hungry?”

I pat my stomach. That sandwich went away quick. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Let’s go in, then. It’s frozen pizza, if that’s alright. I would’ve made it from scratch, but that takes time, and we need to get some good protein in you after...uh, actually, it must’ve been super-long, huh?”

I shrugged. “I had enough money to buy stuff. And mom packed me with four different kinds of lunch...” I said, trying to be a bit nicee ro the guy iis be living with for...yeah, a year. “I slept for most of it, though.” I admitted, and for the first time since I woke up, I thought about that dream…with those Igor and Boris guys and…what where they called? Tar-oh cards?

Rowan smiled and started to go back inside the house. I stopped before I got to the sunroom to look at it again.

Home. For now. It seemed easy to get used to.

Inside the house, I could easily smell cooking sausage and some sort of cheese, and it felt so…good. On the table in the dining ‘room’ was a thin-crusted pizza sitting in the middle on that big wooden spatula thing.

“There’s soda and milk in the fridge,” Rowan smiled. “I’m going to go eat in the study so I can review everything for work tomorrow. Naveen should be here in a few minutes, though…you can survive by yourself, right?”

I nodded. “Good lock on…on work…” I said, trying to try to open up to him. It was sort of hard.

He smiled. “Oh, it’s just a simple divorce settlement. Not too hard.” He walked to the left, waved, and disappeared.

I got a can of Cheerie Diet, which was the only flavor of Cheerie I could stand since it didn’t have as much of the ‘cherry’ flavoring.and sat down at the table. Once we go to the store together, I could probably bargain with him to get some other brand of soda, probably Bococa, maybe some of that Cheerie Min stuff without flavoring, or, even better, some tea bags. After I sat down, I instinctively grabbed a slice of pizza and brought out my phone. I wanted to waste time, but I didn’t know how.

What were those…those card that my dream had? They must’ve been made up. Dreams can do that, right? I remember one time, in another dream, I was really excited at watching a movie about the creation of that Senator Slaughter comic book, but when I woke up and looked it up on the Internet, there was nothing.

The first one was…that spear-looking thing. Plant? Elephant? Hero? Hierophant? What was a Hierophant? I plugged that into my web browser, plus ‘taroh card’. That’s how that one guy pronounced it in my dream. The web search corrected me and said ‘Tarot cards’, so…that was a good sign, right? But the ‘Hierophant’ came up on a webpage about these cards, one with sparkly purple font and all that, but...whatever Igor said today was true. It was all there, right like he said it. Problems with society, social norms, traditions….same with Death and Chariot. It was all accurate.

How could I know this? How could my _dream_ know this? I must’ve heard it somewhere…like, in a book, or on TV, or something. I never looked into these ‘tarot’ cards before. I can’t remember hearing about them before today. But they must’ve creeped into my unconscious somehow…but…

My ringtone went off, my phones started vibrating, and my mom’s face filled the screen. Crap, I forgot to call her, didn’t I? No, no, no, she’d give me the third degree for sure…

I answered it. What else could I do?

“Julie? Julie, are you there?” came my mom’s voice. She sounded afraid. Or, at least, startled.

“Yeah.” I tried to be as nonplussed as possible.

“Where are you? Why haven’t you called yet?”

I sighed. “I’m at Rowans…and, uh, I’ve just been…busy…” I half-lied.

“Oh! Oh, oh, good. You had me worried for awhile,” I heard her sigh. “Do you like Rowan so far? It’s been so long since he saw you…”

“He’s okay, he’s nice.”

“He really is a sweetheart. What do you think of his house?”

I looked around. The walls were bare and white, almost nothing on them except for a few framed pictures of nothing in particular. “It’s clean.”

“Oh, isn’t it? He’s shown me pictures, and it’s always so neat and _modern_. What do you think of the sunroom?”

I leaned back in my chair, getting a look at the room beyond the front door through the windows. “It’s different.”

“He told me about how much it cost…but he says it was worth it. And it’ll make you feel right at home, right?”

“I guess…”

There was a bit of a pause, and I thought about saying goodbye, which was such an assertive thought that even I was startled, but Mom continued, anyway.

“You know…this is going to be the longest I’ll be away from you…” I could hear the tears welling up in her eyes. “I…I hope this will do you good. I really do. I think all the commotion of Knoxville and all the media reports on the…well, Lydon’s always been fairly disconnected from the rest of the country,” I heard a faint sigh on her end. “I mean,  nowadays,  you always get these news alerts for shootings and all this…bad stuff, but back when I was growing up, you barely heard anything outside of the big things…but, I mean, it's still quiet and secluded and quaint...oh, I just love it.”

I looked out to the right, out the window in the dining room,  looking out onto small Colonial houses painted pinks and yellows and blues. I didn't say anything,  though. I didn't know what to say.

“Well, tell me how you feel soon. Do you think you can call me, say, once a week?”

“Yeah.”

“Julie…is that a ‘yeah’ to get me off your back, or are you actually promising?” She said, a bit toyingly.

“I promise.” I smiled a little bit.

“And as long as we’re promising…can you promise that you’ll try to reach out? I know you’ve had some bad experiences with others, but those are all behind you. This is a new chapter for you, okay?”

“I’ll try.” I sort-of lied.

“Thanks. I’ll, uh, I’ll have Dad call you when he gets home. Why don’t you get some food in you? Have you ate?”

“About to.”

“Good! I’ll let you, then. I think you’ll really like this place, Julie. It’s right up your alley.”

I didn’t know how this town could be ‘up my alley’, except for the fact the sights were sort of nice. “Thanks. I, uh, love you.”

“I love you too, sweetie. Bye!” she chimed, then she hung up. That was the thing with Mom – you had make her think it was time to end the conversation, or else she’d keep finding things to talk about.

I put my phone down, sighed a little bit, and tried to begin eating, but someone knocked at the door.

Damn.

I heard footsteps from the computer room, then Rowan’s form from beyond the hallway. The door opened. “Come on in!”

“Hey, thanks.” Came a high-pitched, yet sort of mature voice. “Is she here?”

“Julie!” Rowan called. I got up from my chair, grabbing my phone before I left, and walked down the hall to the front door. Waiting for me was a tall guy, short black hair and a thin goatee. He had on a t-shirt with a cartoon pirate on it, completely grey monochrome, and a pair of loose jeans, along with a black and grey laptop bag.

“Hey, you’re Julie, right?” he said, smiling disarmingly. He leaned down a little bit to talk to me, which you shouldn’t do to a short person. “I’m Naveen Bandy.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

“Why don’t you tell her your full name, Naveen?” Rowan said teasingly.

He sighed. “Bandyopadhyay. It’s Indian.”

I stood there, and I felt the color drain from my face. That was a name?! They could be that long?! What the hell? I tried to turn over how he said that in my head, to replicate it when I could. Band…O…Pad…

He laughed as my face turned sour. “Don’t worry about that! Just call me Mr. Bandy. Or Mr. B. Everyone else does. I’m gonna be your English teacher for this year, probably. Definitely during summer school. Junior English.”

I nodded. I felt like a little kid, for some reason…like I was about to hide behind my parent’s legs or something…

“Well, I have a few things for you…I looked into your schedule for the first semester, and you’re taking gym, so I pulled some of my track coach connections and got you a uniform. And…uh…” he rubbed his back. “I had to pull a lot of favors to let you into summer school this late in the summer, and they wanted me to give you both periods, _and_ gym was the only one open, so…”

My mind went blank. That couldn’t be right! I already had my half credits of P.E. from my old high school! There…there must’ve been a misunderstanding…how could my parents have…”But I…thought I was done with gym?”

“Uh, yeah, Massachusetts requires four years of it. It sucks, I know. And, uh, this really won’t count for…anything. You’re pretty much going to summer school for nothing. But, hey, it’ll help you navigate the mess of the campus.” He chuckled a bit. “Plus, you'll get to come to the bonfire at the end of the semester, and...uh,  guess I'm not selling this well.” I…that was alright. I guess. No finals. Nothing really to worry about. And at least it gave me something to do.

He then opened his satchel and retrieved a tightly folded gym uniform, along with a slender book and a scrap of paper. “That’s the book we’re reading in class. We’re at chapter 12, but, I mean, I don’t expect you to read _all_ of it by Monday…the other thing’s my room number. It’s sort of hard to find.” he handed the three things over to me. The book was was black, except for the words _Machinations_ and a picture of a white snowglobe on the front. The paper had ‘C327’ on it.

“Do you want to stay for lunch, Naveen?” Rowan asked.

Naveen stood up and sighed. “Oh, man, I would, but I gotta get groceries and go to the phone store to get mine repaired. I’ll see you later, Rowan,” he went back to the door. “Oh, and I’ll see you at school Monday, Jules!”

He was already nicknaming me.

He left without much else to say, and Rowan turned to me. “What do you think?”

“He seems…like the kind of guy to always be in a hurry, I guess.”

He nodded and smiled. “Oh, that’s him.”

“How do you guys know each other, anyway?”

Rowan sighed, though he didn’t look exasperated. “Oh, a friend of ours introduced us. We both liked the same authors and shows and all that. We got along fast.”

I nodded.

“It's too bad, but once the school year starts he'll be around more often. According to him, my house is the only place he can get stuff done,” Rowan rolled his eyes. “Believe me, if you saw his half-a-double, you'd know why…” he turned to his watch, then smiled at me. “Well, I have to go keep working. Oh, by the way, you’re welcome to turn on the T.V. or do anything. It’s…well, you might as well make yourself at home, right?”

I smiled, sort of faking it. “Thanks.” I went back to my food without saying another word,.and without realizing how rude that was.

Normally, I’d be a bit unsure about leaving a slice of pizza on the table, but…it was completely clean, so why not? It was cold, but cold pizza is the food of champions, so I happily took a bite.

I spent the next…it didn’t feel that long, but by the time I decided to get up to get a change of scenery, it was already 1600, so I got up, took my phone, and sat in the living room. The biggest couch was soft and plushy, and I sunk into it easily.

I grabbed the T.V. remote from the coffee table, examined it to find the right button, and turned it on. The plasma television immediately went bright, then started showing a commercial for some dumb boating thing. I went to my phone until actual TV came on, browsing a blog I found of rare historical photos in the meantime.

I felt…numb. Not really. More like…

I felt detached, I guess. I’ve been feeling that way for a while. From when I was suspended from school, to when my parents decided to send me here, to the long,  silent summer, to the bus ride to this place. I had these little brief moments of feeling, and a lot in the past few hours, but for the most part, I was still grumpy and a bit unsure about everything, but that…it felt like just a mood, and everything else that was happening to me was just sort of happening, without any change in feeling from me. I think that’s how I felt, anyway.

I sighed. That was probably wrong.

The TV caught my attention away from myself by having a slick CGI news logo fly around the screen, and then showing two news reporters at a front desk, a pretty young woman with gold hair, and a square-jawed older man. They started by welcoming me back from the commercial break, and then started talking about how the summer was coming to an end, ‘and that means the start of the Pirates football season’. It then cut to a field, with players in red and white uniforms practicing and throwing crap around.

I didn’t think I could care less, so I turned back to my phone. After a few dozen minutes of looking at pictures of Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, one of the first invasions of the war, that I, surprisingly, hadn’t seen before, Rowan came out. “I’m going to start on dinner.” He said, I guess to me, and he went into the kitchen.

I kept watching the news, absorbing whatever I could. Fall Festival at Easter Park at the end of August, featuring booths from local restaurants. A few interviews on vacationers. A ‘picture of the day’ from a couple at the beach, looking out into the ocean, making me jealous. A big fire in a suburb of Boston – of course, it couldn’t be cable news without some sort of bad stuff. Wait, was this even cable? It looked professional, but the fact that it was local meant it was probably public access or ultra-regional.

I kept watching. It made Lydon seem alright. I was wavering between deciding this place was a prison or a vacation.

I smelled meat from the kitchen. Beef. Probably. I think.

Eventually, the news faded away into a documentary show about a Heroin epidemic, which just looked like it would make me depressed, so I started flipping through channels until I settled on a game show my parents liked, _Jack-in-the-Box_ , where players would place bets on either a mystery box after hearing clues as to what would be in it, or a guaranteed prize, like a car or a trip to some place. The person with the highest bid on one of the options would get it. Cindy from Akron had bet $400 on the Jack, beating Kirk from San Bernardino’s bet, and it opened to reveal an all-expenses-paid trip to Paris, France.

I smiled. It was easy to be happy for people on these sorts of things.

The next segment had a sort of similar thing happen, where some woman bet a large amount of money on the Jack after getting the hints that it was ‘going to change your life’, then it opened to reveal a ‘hovercar’ that was just a smart car with a helicopter blade attached to the top. It was…stupid. That’s one of the reasons I didn’t like this show. It was fun when people win, but when they lose, they just get something that laughs in their face. Poor girl.

I felt my eyelids growing…heavy. I couldn’t help but yawn and stretch, sinking further into the couch, wanting to fall asleep.

Would I see Igor again? And…that other guy…Boris?

Should I…just…go to bed and find out?

I closed my eyelids for a second. Then two seconds. Then –

“You tired?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, dinner’s ready. Meatloaf and mashed potatoes. I thought comfort food would be good for you right now. You hungry?”

“Yeah.” I struggled out of the couch, stumbled a few steps, and then walked to the kitchen.

“You know, I wouldn’t mind putting a portion in a box and letting you eat it later…you seem pretty tired.”

I fought the urge to rub my eyes. “I’m good.”

We sat at the table. There was a delicious-smelling meatloaf in front of me, somewhat spicy, and mashed potatoes with green stuff freckled on top.

“What…what’s that smell?”

“Oh, it’s sriracha meatloaf and garlic and chive potatoes. Like I said, comfort food.”

I picked at the meat. “What’s…sir-ach-ah?”

He looked surprised. “You don’t know what that is?”

I slowly shook my head.

“It’s…uh…it’s…uh, I actually don’t know how to describe it. It’s a bit spicy. Try it and see if you like it!”

I nodded, lazily segmenting a piece of the meat with my fork – I didn’t like using knives - and looked at it. It was meat, probably beef, tinged a slightly bright red. I was usually a picky eater, but this time…I might as well try it. I sniffed it. I put it in my mouth.

It was this tangy and…just…way too spicy, with a sort of sharp, strong flavor, one that punched the back of my throat just by it's aroma, making my mouth curl in on itself like I just tasted something sour, just…it was awful. Awful.

Rowan looked shocked. “You don’t like it?”

I gulped. “No, no, it’s…it’s just…”

“Oh…I…yeah, your mom told me about what she…uh…”

I nodded.

“Are you going to eat the rest? Or are you…”

I looked at the slighty red meat, and it…I tried another bite. It was still way too spicy for me! I couldn’t…

“It’s…it’s fine. I’ll try to keep the spice down next time.”

I nodded. I felt…awkward. One of the few new feelings I’ve gotten since I came here. “I’m sorry for…”

“It’s fine. It’s fine. I’ll just…”

I looked outside. It was still light outside, but I felt…tired and worn out and I just wanted to lay in a bed. “Can I go to bed?”

“This ear-oh, right…you’re…sort of tired, you said that, right?”

I nodded.

“That’s…fine…and, after that bus ride, a bus-uh,.a bed would be good...” he sighed, though not really sadly. “What time do you think you’ll wake up tomorrow?”

I shrugged.

“I might not be here when you wake up. Work and all. And, uh, don’t worry about your plate, I can take care of it.”

I nodded. “Good…” I sort of wanted to say afternoon, since I wasn’t sure if I’d be staying up or going right to bed, but…”Night.”

“Yeah! Goodnight.”

I slowly walked up the stairs, entering my room, and closing the door behind me. The egg-yolk coloring was sort of energizing, and the almost-sundown sunlight reflected well against the walls, bathing my room in this completely warm color. I looked out the window again. The sea looked yellow, the Sun reflecting against the water, and I could barely see small waves on the surface.

That book I read that I hated told me to remind myself of new opportunities and to….just…what was it? Something along those lines. I couldn’t care if I tried. But…it couldn’t hurt. I opened my window a little bit, pulled out my phone, and took a picture of the scenery, the yellow sky, the orange sea, the bright and low sun…

It looked…

Sort of pretty. Sort of wonderful. Sort of…

Just ‘sort of’.

I sighed. I still felt numb, uncaring, detached. My mind was still wavering between ‘this place is alright’ to ‘this place is going to be the death of me’. Either a gilded cage or a vacation.

I hated these goddamned mood swings.

I laid down on my bed, looking at that popcorn ceiling. My eyes felt heavy. My body felt like it was sinking. My mind felt numb.

I soon saw the inside of my own eyelids.

####  **Sunday, July 29** **h**

I woke up…cold. Very cold. I guess it had to do with the fact that I didn’t have any blankets on, that I went to bed in my Tennessee clothes, and that I had my dumb window open. My room was covered in a light blue haze. Not that…’Velvet Room’ blue, but still…

How the hell was I still remembering that? I sat upright in my bed and tried to think of what exactly happened. Igor, the friendly imp, and Boris, the silent, strong guy. Then there were the Tarot cards – Hierophant, the reversed one, then Death, then Chariot. The ones with meanings that I couldn’t have possibly known. Whenever I tried to remember it, I felt this…tinge in my head, not a hurtful one, but…something…I couldn’t explain it. How was I still remembering this stuff? It was a dream. You’re not supposed to remember that.

I got up, closed my window, and looked out onto the town. Some warm white lights littered the top levels of houses that I could see, and there was a small sliver of water at the horizon colored a light cyan. The sky was a light grey, sort of blue.

I didn’t feel numb anymore, or grumpy, or just…I felt okay. Just okay. The blue air felt relaxing to me, I guess.

I checked my phone on the floor next to my bed. I should probably invest in a endtable. Or, at least, put it on the dresser. It was…around 0515.  I had a phone call from my dad, which, since my mom sprung for voice mail on our carrier before we left, I was able to listen to.

“Julie? Julie, it’s me. Your mom says you’re at Rowans, and I guess you must be asleep. Long bus ride, and all. I, uh, I’m sorry I’m calling you at 7, but the traffic coming home, uh…yeah. Call me when you wake up. Love you!”

He seemed in a rush. I made a mental note to call him sometime today, hopefully when he wasn’t busy killing bugs.

I had no idea what to do. I didn’t want to go back to bed, that was for sure. I was still horribly cold. I took off my clothes from yesterday and looked for anything more covering – almost nothing. In Tennessee, and most southern states, now that I think about it, you really didn’t have to worry about covering yourself up. The winters usually only got as low as 50°. I mostly brought along long-sleeved, if thin, shirts, and a few pairs of blue jeans, along with a single pair of fleece lounge pants. I don’t remember if that was good enough for this place, but it seemed nice so far!

Still cold, though.

I saw that T.V. and my laptop next to it, along with that super-inviting beanbag. I shrugged to nobody, grabbed my comforter from my bed, sat in the bag, threw the comforter over my body, and pulled my computer to my body, trying to keep it plugged in – you can’t play video games on an unplugged laptop unless you want your computer to die a few minutes in. The remote for the T.V. was on the stand it was on, and after my computer powered up all the way, I turned on the television.

It stayed dark for a couple of seconds, for whatever reason. I struggled to mess with the remote, since I had to balance my larger-than-my-lap laptop to make sure it didn’t go crashing to the floor. I went through channels. All black.

Until something came up.

A test pattern. Humming. Then a couple of…random lines, like a technical glitch, like the lines that show up if you crack open an LED screen, then…

A…guy…I think. In a red and black checkerboard mask that covered his eyes, like an opera mask, but no room for his actual eyes. He had red, fluffy hair that stuck out from his head in a star pattern, and a black and white striped, baggy suit and a ruffled collar that seemed to be tipped with red. Behind it was a colorful room, with the walls and floors covered in bright and large puzzle pieces.

“HELL- _O_ BOYS AND GIRLS OF DO-L-LYDON!” It…it pretty much shrieked at me, its voice loud and almost inhuman. It kept…glitching up whenever it talked.

“It’s t-time for your favorite show! _MR. IT’S DAWN REV-REV-REVUL-REVERIE!_ More like Mr. _ICK,_ a-am-ma I RIGHT?!” When it said ‘Ick’, a flash of a…I think it was a spider flashed on screen for less than a second. “O-o-o-oh, I kno-th-ow what you’re thinking, especially _you_ , Cha-J-il-ad, that ‘oh, this guy’s gross! Why _MUST_ he come u-up-Sun-up every Sunday? Right after I dream of sweets and candy and _mons-_ cute girls but DON’T WORRY I’M STILL HERE! **I’M ALWAYS HERE**!”

My mouth was hanging open.

What the hell is this? I already have a headache. It was just…super annoying. His voice was shrill, making me wince every time he said something. It must be public access. He mentioned Lydon, And the video quality was…cheap. The fact that it distorted whenever he talked…it all seemed…terrible.

My thumb hovered over the channel button, thinking of changing it to PPF, even at this time, it would probably be dumb stuff about ancient aliens or something like that, but…

I felt oddly entranced. Oddly. I sort of wanted to see how this ended.

“OH, DO- _OOO-AAAA-ON’T_ TOUCH THAT DIAL, KIDDIES! We’re about to t-alk about this week’s to-to-pic…”

The feed suddenly cut to this…old professor. The footage looked older than what the…clown…thing…was. At the bottom of the screen was a bar with letters. _‘Prof. Peaslee.’_

“Your…are…” he…’said’. He didn’t really say that. It was obvious that the footage was cutting and splicing into new words, like what a reality show does. He kept switching between faces, positions of his hand, stuff like that. “Not…read-ee.” The video suddenly cut to a picture of a rapidly shaking head. “Are…un-noun. You are…should…just...stay…like this…” another picture, this time of a cage. ”don’t…know…you…”

What…

What the _fuck_ was this?

I immediately changed the channel to something else before the stupid dumb clown could start shrieking again, some nature program on what I assumed was Our World, then brought up the channel listings to find whatever PPF was. Like I guessed, it was airing a show hypothesizing about how aliens could’ve _totally_ built the Pyramids at Giza! (It was slaves and workers who were both paid remarkably well, but whatever.)

That stupid clown made me annoyed for whatever reason. Well, no, the reason was obvious. He was a shrill dude who probably aired his show out of his garage in order to try and shock people. He took everything he knew about monster movies starring clowns and tried to apply them to this mock kid’s show that served to spook people whoever tuned in, and I’d be surprised if even _one_ person thought it was scary. Hell, I don’t even think _kids_ would be scared by it.

I…had to know more. My computer was on a screensaver right now, so I messed with the touchpad, brought up my web browser, quickly connected to Rowan’s unprotected WiFi, then typed in “mr it lydon ma” into the search bar. The only thing that came up was some dumb web fiction about this guy who _totally_ grew up here and saw this TV show at dawn when he was a kid and was just this story about the show descended into madness and it was the worst. This guy and the guy who were playing ‘Mr. It’ were probably the same person, and he probably wrote the story on his blog to ‘promote’ his dumb show. He probably wanted to get picked up by some dumb studio and turn this dumb thing into a series like those dumb shows late at night that were comedy shows with this same ‘dumb’ humor and…gah, I’m so pissed off now!

I closed the webpage and brought up some relaxing music that usually helped me…y’know, relax. I got out my big headphones and my computer mouse from my backpack, plugged them in, and listened. I ended up playing some _Road to Ruin_ , as shooting horrible mutants to protect my virtual family with slightly inaccurately-depicted weapons helped me calm down, too. An hour later, the room was covered in yellow again, and I heard Rowan’s car pull out of the driveway.

I was alone.

I leaned back, looked at the ceiling. I didn’t know how long I’d be alone, but…I didn’t really care. I smiled a little bit. Waste time until he comes back. That’s what I usually do.

I smiled, managing to turn my mind off. For a little bit, at least. I spent the next hour or two or however long playing video games with the TV on, listening to noise, catching up on the military history or just cool photo blogs I followed on Eatan!. I eventually got hungry, so I headed downstairs to the refrigerator and found a plastic container of that meatloaf from last night.

I opened it up. I sniffed it. It...it seemed alright. I wasn’t as irritable as I was last night – well, except for that dumb clown thing, I could probably stomach it. I wiped my finger against it and licked the sauce it was slathered with. Still super-spicy, but with a cold texture. My face tightened up, and I ended up holding open my mouth and panting a little bit (just a little!) to get more air in. I almost wanted to not eat it, but it was pretty much the only leftovers in the fridge, and I wanted something, y’know, cooked instead of white bread sandwiches and dumb snacks. I sighed, deciding to suffer through the pain like a good soldier, found the microwave above the oven  - meaning I had to get on my toes just to even operate it – struggled a little bit putting the container in the middle, poked in one minute though I couldn’t see the screen, and hit what I guess was the ‘nuke’ button. I tried to look into any of the other cabinets for stuff, but they were empty and devoid of any actual foods. There weren’t any snacks or fun things in there, just plates and appliances. Toaster, blender, food processor, etc.

This house…honestly…it seemed like a model house. Or a house during an open house or whatever. Everything was clean and spic-and-span and purely white. The pictures on the wall were just generic pictures of black-and-white waves or prints of paintings of colorful flowers. The appliances were all top-of-the-line, with brushed aluminum accents, LED screens, little lights. The oven didn’t have ranges, just weird little spots on the surface. There wasn’t any hint of grime or scum or anything on the counters or anything! Even the coffee pot – well, it was one of those capsule ones. Where you put the little thing in the…but, whatever it was, there wasn’t any sort of coffee remains or liquid or anything! Those things are impossible to clean! I couldn’t…like…it didn’t feel like anyone _lived_ here. It’s like Rowan just sort of occupied space here. I…

First, the Midnight – no, the Velvet Room. I think. That Igor dude. What that other guy’s name was. Boris? And then that freaky but mostly annoying Mr. Ick stuff. And now this…realization…I couldn’t call it a realization. More like a fact? More like a…

I shuddered. I breathed a bit faster. I had to…

I [ blinked ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPFVOczfvXU) , and as if my mind knew what I wanted to do, I had a Hard Knocks breaching hammer in my hand. I squeezed the cushiony grips with both fingers to make sure this was the right one. This…it was gonna be _fun._ I slammed it down hard on the dumb stupid weird oven, watching all the little shards of glass fly up in the air, light glimmering off of every little piece. They landed at my feet, twinkling sounds filling the air. Then came the microwave. With every little ounce of strength I had in my five-foot (and two inches) body, I slammed the clawed end of the hammer into the glass door, grinning as wide as I could, and I saw that stupid ‘sir-ach-ah’ sauce burst from the meat inside, almost like…yeah! I giggled, smiling wide, seeing my carnage so far. Oven…microwave…what next? Oh, the possibilities…the hammer took a little bit of effort to pull out, before it gave way, slamming to the ground, the sheer force of its weight almost stumbling me, but it wasn’t that much of an issue. I looked at that coffee maker. It was too goddamned perfect. I readied the hammer and swung the clawed end into it, seeing the electricity spark over this stupid little perfect place, brown liquid coming out of the little compartment, spraying over the little dumb perfect white walls and the off-white cabinets and Jesus Christ why is everything so white?! It was too white! Things need to have stains or specks or just something but it was too perfect, too stupidly white, and oh my God it was just

I blinked again and I was on the couch in the living room, sitting upright, my body almost inside the cushions.

That was…

I smiled, looking down. These little visions…I liked them. They were my way of getting back at the world for treating me…like…

It was nothing.

I got up from the couch. The beeper from the microwave was, well, beeping. According to the clock on the wall, it wasn’t even five minutes later. Thankfully. I stood up on my toes again, opening the door, pulling out the slightly warm container and smelling it. It smelled like beef and spicy. The sir-ach-ah sauce still gave me that weird spicy and tangy sensation on my tongue. I sighed.

It was this or nothing.

I found the silverware in a drawer by the oven, brought the ‘food’ up to my room, sat down in the beanbag, shoved the fork into the loaf, wedged out a piece of meat, and placed the whole thing in my mouth. The spiciness and the sort of weird, foreign feeling hit my tongue full-force. My face twisted up. I tried hard not to cry. But it was hard!

I hate spicy stuff. This was a bad omen.

I really wanted to shove this entire crap loaf into the trash, but I didn’t want to make feel Rowan as bad as I did last night by ditching him and the dinner he made.

So I kept eating. I bit and I chewed and I felt tears roll down my face and I grit my teeth, and I coughed a couple of times and it felt like I had coughed up blood, I kept eating through the pain and my tongue felt like it was on fire…

Then, I looked through the tears in my eyes, and it was all gone.

I felt a little bit of pride, and I smiled a little bit.

I walked, well, trudged downstairs, and I placed the container and the fork in the dishwasher where I thought it was placed.

It was noon, but I kept wasting time the way I usually did. Web surfing followed by video games when that got boring, and then videos and TV shows that I knew were on when that got boring, then repeating the cycle all over again. It lasted me for six years so far. I tried not to think about how many nights I’ve spent like that.

I heard Rowan’s subcompact around 1745. The front door unlocking. Footsteps.

I should probably go downstairs.

I picked up my phone, put my laptop on the floor, and slowly walked down the stairs. Rowan was struggling with some grocery bags and a briefcase. He was in a tan suit now, though it was mostly undone.

“Can I help?” I asked him, trying not to recognize that numbness slowly coming up my back.

Rowan shook his head. “Oh! No, no, no…it’s all cool,” He placed all of the bags on the ground, then sighed. “Well, you see, I thought that I might’ve overdone it last night…your mom told me you were a bit of a picky eater…”

I sighed. “Yeah…”

“Well, I thought that I should try something a bit more classic tonight…and I found a good recipe…how do pulled pork nachos sound?”

“Huh?”

“I read that they’re a Tennessee staple online…” he shrugged.

“Oh! Yeah!” I remembered that they…I think they were. They were? “You guys don’t have them?”

“Not really. Well, we have stuff like, uh, it’s always described as a ‘southern classic’ online, so I thought they were…” he laughed awkwardly. “That’s what I thought, anyway.”

I laughed a little bit.

“Well, I’m gonna get to work on this right away. It’s a really long recipe…”

I nodded. “Oh…uhm…” I muttered, not really sure how to say what I wanted to say. Or how to make words. That happened a lot. “I had some of that ‘sir-ach-ha’ meat today…I like it.” I lied. But it might make him feel better.

He laughed. “Yeah, I just remembered today that your mom said you didn’t like spicy foods…”

“It’s fine.”

He nodded, then tried to pick up everything again. I thought about helping, but I froze…I heard glass clinking and I didn’t want to break anything…”You coming down?”

“Yeah.”

He went in the kitchen, I went up and grabbed my laptop, plugged it into a free outlet near one of the couches, and sat down. The stupid cycle started again. Games. Web. Videos. Games. Web. Video. Games. Web. Video. Ga

“Dinner’s ready!”

I got up. It was 1900 already. The kitchen was filled with the smell of roasted pork, barbecue sauce, which was easier on my nose than sir-ach-ah, Colby Jack cheese…it made me feel at home. On the counter was a pile of yellow, brown, and gold on a plate – cheese, pork, sauce, chips…it looked amazing.

“Do nachos usually take that long?” I asked, sort of off the top of my head, then I realized how crappy that was of me to say. I think. “But they look good!”

Rowan sighed, happily. “Well, uh…uh…I’ll be honest, I sort of took breaks to work on my phone…”

I sat in the chair. “Why? Same reason you had to go to work on a Sunday?”

“Oh, yeah…every time a rich couple decides to divorce, we usually have to work overtime…especially if they’re…oh, nevermind. Nobody likes talking law,” He brought the platter to the middle of the table, with plates in another hand. “Do you need anything to drink?”

I shook my head. “I don’t mind talking that. It’s a lot better than…uh…talking about killing bugs or yoga.”

He nodded. “Well, uh, if you don’t mind me blabbering, there’s this wealthy couple over on Gulls, that’s this street near the coast with all the mansions. Not like the stuff you find in the mainland US, but they’re still big houses. But, apparently, the two of them got in a drunken spat Friday, it got really heated, the husband kicked out the wife, she got a hotel off of main street, then late that night she called into my firm and started yelling at Christianson on his personal phone, that’s one of the three other lawyers I work with, besides the legal aids, and boy, she had one too many wi-oh, uh…this is getting a bit personal, isn’t it?” To be honest, he did sound like a high school girl blabbering, but…it was still pretty interesting.

I grabbed a cluster of chips from the pile, putting it on my plate. “Oh, no, it’s really, uh…I mean, I don’t know them, anyway.”

“Oh, and they don’t have kids, so you won’t run into the aftermath at school…uh, anyway, so the wife was six sheets to the wind, I mean, that’s pretty justified, but she was yelling that she wanted divorce, and Christianson was trying to say that you had to get this paperwork, so she said she’d come into the office Sunday, and he tried saying that we weren’t really _open_ on Sunday, but she insisted, so of course we had to be open on Sunday and help her gather all of her paperwork together and tell her what to do,” he sighed, and had a bit of nachos (nacho?), chewed a bit, and continued talking. “You know, they have a lot of stuff, so it’s going to take a while to sort through everything. They have a yacht over by Martha’s Vineyard, a summer flat in San Diego…”

Something crossed my mind. “Should you be…telling me all this? Like…is there a confidentiality clause? For being a lawyer?”

He shook his head. “Nope. It’s in bad taste to do it, though. Well, not always. Depends on the practice. Like, what I’m doing right now…I’m not sure. But everyone at my practice does it anyway.”

“Oh…”

“Hey, it’s fine! Like you said, you don’t know the people, right?”

I shrugged. I was starting to feel like a jerk now…

“We can talk about something else.”

“It’s okay,” I finished my plate, then went for seconds. “So…uh…do you mostly do divorces?”

He shrugged again, but I could tell he was thinking hard. I think. “Around here…yeah, it’s mostly divorces. And most of them are young couples, so there’s not a lot of custody battles. But a family lawyer usually does stuff like, say, adoption. Or suing someone for abuse.”

“Oh.”

He paused. “So, why don’t you tell me about yourself? I don’t really know a lot about you other than what your mom told me.”

I tapped my plate for a little bit.  “I don’t think Mom would skimp out any details…”

“Oh, well, I suppose, knowing Janice…” He stifled a laugh. “Are you looking forward to school here?”

I shrugged.

“I’m sure you’ll love it. All of the kids here are really friendly. Not uppity or spoiled or anything.”

I knew why he was saying that. “That’s good,” I said quickly, then remembered something. “Do you watch the public access shows here?”

“Yeah. That’s what the local news is on. Pretty high-quality, but, well, we are a sort of affluent town.”

“Do you know about…Mr. Ick?” I said. That whole stupid clown show was bugging me.

He rubbed his chin. “That’s the…oh, yeah, that kid’s show that’s on at, like, 5 in the morning, right? I don’t know much about it, but it’s popular with some of the teenagers. Especially, uh, the…” he leaned in closer, like someone else would hear us. “The stoners. Sometimes the college kids from M.U., too.”

“Oh.” So…okay. That didn’t help. But okay.

We stayed silent and waited for a little bit longer, though soon we started – well, he started – talking about the weather. I had just missed the warmest month of the year so far, and August was looking fairly hot, but normal. I said I was used to hot weather. It went like that until the food was all gone. By that point it was almost 1900 I politely asked to go to bed, since I wanted to get plenty of rest for tomorrow, even though I usually went to bed at 2000, and he said yes. I said goodnight, got my stuff, and went back up to my room.

My room was dark. The sun had just set, and the sky was bathed in oranges, light reds, and a small amount of pink. There weren’t any clouds at all, and the entire sky was on display. There were faint waves in the thin strip of ocean I could see, some thin streaks of white that looked like I had dragged a pastel against my window. I saw the silhouettes of a few birds against the skyline. It was…really pretty, actually.

I didn’t have any messages. Either two things – my parents were off on a date night, or they thought it would be better to leave me alone for the day. I thought back to that mental note I made to call my dad, sighed, sat on my bed, and hit his contact image.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

“Hello? Julie?”

“Hi, dad.”

“Hey! How’ve you been?” he asked, sounding like we were friends who hadn’t seen each other for a year.

“I’m fine.”

“Alright…” he paused. He wasn’t really one for words. Neither was I, sometimes. It’s where I got it from. “Well, how’s New England?”

I got up from my bed and wandered over to the window. That same beautiful, pastel sight was still there. “It’s pretty.”

“Pretty…what?”

“Just pretty.”

“Oh, oh, yeah,” he paused again. “Well, uh, me and mom decided to let you settle back into your new sit for a couple of days before we start bugging you again. But, uh, we do love you, you know?”

“I know. I love you too.”

I felt the air get thick and awkward through the speaker.

“So, uh, what do you think of the house?”

“It’s too goddamned plain and too goddamned perfect. Everything is so clean and white, and there’s no signs of anyone living here. You know? It’s just so completely _perfect_ . There’s no stains, no weird marks, no spills and no scuffs on the floor or anything. It’s just…I **hate** it. I hate this dumb perfect house, and I hate Rowan and his try-too-hard easygoing personality, and I hate this stupid rich town, and I **really** hate you for sending me here! I mean, Christ, all that happened was I got suspended for a little slip-up! That’s not like it would end my social life, which I _don’t_ even have! When’s the last time I had a friend over or the last time someone invited me out? I’ve never been on a date! I’ve never been to a party! I’ve never had anything good happen to me at school, it’s always being insulted or being treated like a toy or being told off! For SIX FUCKING YEARS, it’s been that! I acted out against it, and that’s what sets you off? Not the fact that I’ve been harassed every day?! _That’s_ not what makes you think I couldn’t go to school anymore?! What the hell, Dad? What, were you only worried about how people at work would treat you when they find out your daughter got suspended? Or if mom’s gym would lose people because she raised a little psycho? What the hell is wrong with you?”

Wait, no.

“It’s pretty nice. Really clean. And I can see the ocean from where I am.”

“Oh, that’s right, I don’t think me and Mom’ve ever taken you to anywhere coastal, haven’t you? This’ll be fun, won’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, uh…hold on…” there was muttering that I couldn’t fully hear. “Well, uh…uh…”

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, I just have to get off the phone for a little bit. I’m putting in a later shit-uh, shift than normal, and I’m actually in the break room right now…” he laughed a little bit. “We have an appointment for a _big_ rat infestation in Farragut.”

“Oh. Okay…” I paused. “Can you do it non-lethally?”

“That’s what we usually do for rats.”

“Thanks.”

“Anyway, I’ll see you. Sorry for the short talk, but, uh…stuff…I, uh, I love you!” I could hear him kissing the air. That’s what he normally did over the phone.

I smiled a little bit and did the same.

He hung up.

I took out my phone’s charger from the spot besides my bed and plugged it into an outlet that was hiding behind a dresser, though I had to muscle it askew to even get to it. Thankfully, my charger was flat, so it fit nicely. I took off my shirt and my pants, threw them in the hamper, and crawled into bed. My fan was on, so I could make the most of sleeping under the covers. It’s what I needed.

Tomorrow, I started my first day of school that didn’t mean anything. I’d just go there, see the layout of the building, meet two teachers, one of them being a gym teacher, and one of them seeming…odd. I wouldn’t do anything cool. I wouldn’t meet anyone. Sit down, shut up, learn stuff that you didn’t need to because you’d be repeating a grade.

I turned over, faced my pillow, and screamed, hot tears welling up in my eyes, gritting my teeth, rubbing my face in the stupid fucking cushion, God dammit this was all just so stupid and I didn’t even have to be here and oh my God why can’t I just go home instead of going to a stupid school where I didn’t know anyone and was probably full of more pricks and jerks and bullies and…

I took a deep breath, faced the wall, and tried to think positive.

It didn’t work so well.

I thought about using my window as a sniping position.

That helped a bit.

I sighed and kept breathing, deeper, deeper, deeper…

Soon, the only thing I could do was breathe.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure if a 20 page chapter is too long, but I'm coming off of my last project where I tried to stick under 10 pages each chapter, and...it didn't work out well. I don't think so, anyway. I'm not sure. In any case, if this is too long, tell me so I can get that feedback!
> 
> I think my MC's mood might be a little bit over the place this chapter, her mood swings nonwithstanding, but, thankfully, by the third chapter and beyond I did manage to get her personality really locked down.
> 
> I might go back and remove/edit a certain section of this, but other than that I'm really happy with this! It's sort of a weird timeframe but, oh well. Also, I'm not going to keep describing absolutely everything, especially when things start kicking off and days start going by.


	3. Schools Are Prisons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new friend. For now.

####  **Monday, July 30th**

My alarm of Taps woke me up at 7:25 exactly. Back home, I could just stick my arm out of my bed and slide the bar to shut up my phone on my nightstand – here, I actually had to get out of bed, stumble over to the dresser by the door, feeling the cold hardwood floor shock my feet, shut up my alarm, and fight the urge to go back to bed.

I did want to. Today was supposed to be my first day of school. Technically. I didn’t know if this was actually worth credits. I wasn’t sure of what the people there would be like. Who’d be nice to me. Who’d actually…

Images flashed in my mind of Kelly and Jane whispering to each other when I passed them in the halls. Chris ‘accidentally’ tripping me down the stairs. Zip-ties on my locker handle, that or hiding trash or other weird stuff in there. Kneeing me in the rear end to make me move faster in the halls. Intentionally elbowing me in the head when they passed me in the halls. Why did they do it to me specifically? How come the school always turned the other way? Was it because of their sports and academics and whatever? When they did they decide me specifically? Why did they try to make my life so… _awful_?

And who was to say this year would be better?

I had one hand on the wall and another on my temple. Calm down, calm down…

I ran through the memories again in my head, but every time one of the Sherman High Five tried to pick on me, I pulled out a AM-STL Adder revolver, probably chambered in .454, and shot them in the goddamned heads.

They deserved it.

I sighed, straightening my back, looking at all the too-blank walls.

This will be different. You can find a friend. Find _one_ friend.

I opened one of my dressers, and I ran through my options for clothing. Something simple. Something that wouldn’t make me stand out. I decided on a light grey shirt, collared and cuffed, and a pair of dark blue non-jean pants, ones that _actually had pockets_. My shoes went on, my phone went in my pocket, and I slid my backpack over my shoulders. It wasn’t very heavy, since I only had that English book that I didn’t read, my bit-too-big gym uniform, and some basic school supplies inside, so I think I could ride my new bike with it on, even if it was a few inches larger than my entire torso.

As soon as I put my hand on the door handle, though, I remembered something, and, as I was a slave to my habits, I climbed back up the stairs to my room. I opened up one of my suitcases, brought out an orange prescription bottle, opened it, and put an antidepressant in my mouth.

They usually don’t work. Doesn’t hurt to try, though.

I walked out of the house, taking in the air for a moment, locking it with my key, got on my bike, and quickly used my phone to get the directions to Chelsea High School. Getting around would probably be difficult on an island that’s full of twists and turns. It seemed sort of compact, but there were roads and streets _everywhere_ . It’s like they thought they wouldn’t run out of room. The only clean parts of the map were a mile or two of protected wilderness, and the small-looking beaches. That isn’t _nearly_ big enough. Jeez…

The journey wasn’t very long or perilous. Just me in the [sort-of-mid morning](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnvWgklv9mQ), crisp and clean air in my face, taking my own pace, looking at all the old buildings, all different pastel colors with small wooden signs or boards in front of the doors or whatever. They were all small and some were smushed together, sort of. Every stretch of buildings seemed to have a small patch of green between them, along with large stretches of cultivated shrubbery and trees with fountains and benches. There was one portion of the ride that was sort of like home, where the buildings were bigger and had more distance between them, and the road was made of bricks for some reason. Maybe it was Main Street? Other than that, it was all so…different. I liked it. Sort of. The temperature was pleasing, breezy, not too hot or cold, and I went at a leisurely pace in order to look at the cute little storefronts or the abundance of trees. I tried to stay off the sidewalk and only really go on the far end of the road, away from the sparse cars that were driving by, but I still had to swerve to get around parked cars and the like. If the views were terrible, it might’ve been a grueling ride, but what I was able to see more than made up for it. It almost made me forget about the fact that I was going to a new school alone. Completely alone. Every time my mind wandered to that fact, I just reminded myself to keep pedaling and looking around.

I got to the high school, with a park on one side and a small strip of stores on the other. The side of the street across from that LED sign had a few buildings and one fenced-in area. I guess that was the sports complex? I got off my bike and walked around the school a couple of times, trying to find a way in that wasn’t the front road that lead into a parking lot. I eventually found a path that lead to a bike rack with a locked door beside it, with a road that wound around to concrete plaza and a few tables outside. The fact that the high school just looked like a mishmash of rectangles didn’t help me find a place to stop, I guess. When I realized that I didn’t have a bike chain, I just left it by the rack really closely.

Near the bike rack were glass double doors against a wall covered with windows. I put my hand on the cold aluminum handle and…

I froze.

I had no idea what to expect. When I looked in, I just saw a clean white hallway and colorful posters and Goddammit _that looks like every school ever_ . I didn’t know who would be waiting for me inside. I didn’t know who’d be there. I didn’t know if they’d be nice or how many people went to this school or if there’d be stupid prep girls that’d harass me or if I would get found out as a transfer or if anyone would even _notice_ me.

I felt my hand tremble. I had to stop that.

_Don’t let anyone notice you._

I sighed, pulled open the door, and walked in.

The inside of the [school ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGJWqB7aZp4)was white, one or two people wandering around, all teenagers. The floor was made out of those tiles with the blue and purple specks on it that were in, like, every high school, and the walls were white and well-windowed. There was a banner hanging from the ceiling of a cartoon pirate with red and white borders. The few people in that hallway seemed to be wrapped up in their phones or in other people, so nobody noticed me. Good.

I still got that horrible nervous feeling that people get when they’re entering a school for the first time, though. It’s one of those feelings that’s super-hard to describe, but everyone’s experienced it. Knots in your stomach. Looking around at everything and everyone. Absorbing the posters on the wall and the banners and the different names of the facilities. Scanning my surroundings and trying to sense what this would be. Ronald E. Lloyd Gymnasium. Charles Lindfort  Auditorium. Student Commons. I couldn’t help but notice all the potential exits and hiding spaces, behind columns, underneath stairs, nondescript closets, any of the possible places where…something could be hidden for further use. Couldn’t be helped, I guess.

I tried to ease my breathing, try to remind myself to keep calm. It was hard. I didn’t know who was here – everyone was faceless, nameless. Would they like me?

I found that hard to believe. If my past experiences were anything to go by…

I had a feeling I was a hard person to like.

I wandered through the halls, finding a staircase to take me up to the third level where room C327 was probably located, slowly climbed up it, trying not to lose my balance on the first day of school, and I walked through the L-shaped arrangement of hallways, counting the room numbers up, than down, and then up again, trying to figure out where the stupid room was located. This wasn’t that big of a school compared to Sherman in Knoxville. It was just…confusing.

When I eventually found C327 after passing by it two times, I stood outside it for a little bit. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I wasn’t sure who’d be in there. Did I want people to notice me? I told myself when I woke up to make one friend.  Was I just trying to pump myself up? Did I actually want a friend? Would they just start making fun of me down the line? Would they just mock me with their _other_ friends? I…don’t think it’d work out.

I exhaled a little bit, looking into the little window on the room. Mr. B. was in there, talking to a student. The room was bright, the walls a sort of light blue with white desks and cabinets. It seemed…okay…

I opened the door and walked in.

There were a few students in their seats, maybe a dozen, on their phones, not doing much of anything. Nobody paid any attention to me. Good. The room had a chalkboard, a whiteboard, and a few posters up on banned books, famous underground poets, a map of that one fantasy show on BBFC, and other stuff that I guess was supposed to appeal to teenagers and get them interested in English. I didn’t really care either way. I tried to sit in the last row, in the middle, having some struggles with my backpack brushing against people and probably telling them that I existed.

I sat down and looked at the desk. It was small, wooden covered with a plastic glaze or something like that. It was remarkably clean and scratch-free. I remembered one of my old desks, the first one I had in high school,  the one that was covered in swastikas and, for some reason, the numbers 69 and 420. It somehow made me feel better.  I twiddled my thumbs. I tried not to breath. I tried not to make eye contact with anybody. I tried to disappear.

So far so go-

 _“Psst. Hey._ ” Something to the right of me said. Oh no. Oh no _no no no no_. This was how it started with Kelly – talking to me in my math class in 8th grade and trying to start a conversation with me that gradually turned to how tiny I was. No! This can’t be happening so soon! I just sat down! I wasn’t even doing anything! How could anyone notice me? I’m five feet tall! And two inches! I’m –

“Hey.” the voice sounded again. I…I had to acknowledge it. They’d just keep trying to pester me and then they’d tell their friends about how I’m deaf and then the rumor around this stupid high school would be that there’s a new deaf girl or something. I swallowed a tiny bit of air, pulled my neck upwards, almost against my will, and looked to the right of my seat.

A tall girl. Looked older than me – everyone did. Black button-up shirt opened up to show off a pink tank top with a logo of a CD with an old nuclear bomb falling on it. Piercings on her face, including two on either side of her nose. A scar or two, here and there. Tattered jeans. Short, bright pink hair. She was smiling. At me. It seemed like a friendly smile. But I’ve seen a lot of ‘friendly’ smiles that ended up being fake. “You new around here?” she asked with a very strong New England accent. I think it was from Boston, but I’ve never been. I’ve only seen it in war movies and a few TV shows.

I slowly nodded, still not really looking at her.

“Really? Been a long time since we got someone new…where you from?”

“Tennessee…” I mumbled.

“No shit, really? The hell are you here, then?”

Because of…things I shouldn’t have done. “Reasons.”

“Alright. You coming to school next semester or is it just for summer school?”

“Next semester, too. And the one after that.”

She smiled again,  more sly than last time. “I like that accent.”

My lips curled. My accent? Oh, no, I forgot I had that dumb hick Southern accent, and now she probably thinks I’m a dumb racist redneck, and…

“Wait, that’s not a bad thing,” she reassured me, but her voice didn’t change from that ‘friendly’ tone. “You know, just hearing that same old dumb accent up here gets old. Bet you felt the same way down south, right?”

That was…sort of true. I nodded. “I like yours, too.”

She did a little ‘tch’ sound. “Alright, lemme just get it out of the way – ‘I _pahked_ the _caah_ at _Haahvad Yaahd_. Not that you can do that, but whatever.”

I raised an eyebrow. What was that about? That was just…weird. Silly. Was that a stereotype?

“Christ, you really are new here, aren’t you? When did you come in?”

“Saturday.”

“Wow. You haven’t seen much of the town then, have you?”

I shook my head. This was probably the most conversation I’ve gotten out of someone my age in…a while. It was hard not to get a bit happier. “I like it so far, though.”

“Eh, not much to see, honestly. Island’s a fucking tourist trap. Whaling museums and Revolutionary War BS and stuff like that.”

“I like wars. And guns and stuff.” I said, trying not to remind myself of guns and stuff.

“Don’t look like it.”

I pulled up my bag, maybe struggling a little bit. “Military surplus backpack…I brought a few MREs – those packaged meals that soldiers eat - from home…and, uh, I used to have a BB pistol – not a springer, an actual gas one, and an electric rifle one. Those got…” they got taken away, but she didn’t have to know that.

I sat there after those words cleared my mouth. Those are…a lot of words I just said…was that a record?

“That’s pretty cool. That you, like, have a hobby. I…don’t. Oh…” she smiled more warmly at me. “I’m Lilli Nai-ming.”

I tried to match her smile’s warmness, though I still wasn’t sure. She definitely wasn’t a prep, like the Sherman High Five. But she seemed...dangerous, in her own way. Maybe it was because her hair was dyed. Maybe it was because her shirt had a bomb on it. “I’m Julie Boucher.” I said, trying to use the correct French pronunciation that was along the lines of _boosh-ey_ , lest it sound like ‘Belcher’ or ‘Doucher’. I didn’t have to be reminded of that common mistake.

Lilli nodded. “Nice to meet you.”

I looked at the desk a little bit more. Should I let the conversation die? She seemed nice. But the class was going to be starting soon, but…oh well. Why not? “How long have you lived here?” I asked, trying to keep things afloat.

She looked upwards for a second. “Since middle school. Moved to when I was three to Boston, then moved to Lydon.”

“So you know the state pretty well?”

She looked away. “Kind of. Know this islan-“, she began, but a loud electronic chime cut her off. It sounded like it was coming from the loudspeakers. Lilli looked at me, a bit annoyed. “Talk to you later.” she said, then turned herself to the front of her chair, looking bored.

I was ecstatic! That was an actual conversation! With someone! Face-to-face! My own age! They didn’t give me any backhanded compliments or just insult me! It was…

I sighed a little bit, sinking into the plastic seat. This was a good sign.

Mr. B. stood up from his seat, pressed something metal on his desk that made a chime, probably a hotel bell, and the rest of the class sprung to attention, and he put his hand over his heart. Everyone got out of their chairs, did the same, and we recited the Pledge. I did it with a ton of gusto, like I always do, and everyone sat back down. Mr. B. walked to the center of the front row.

“Alright, I know we’re winding down here, and the noreaster sort of blew us off track, pun intended, so we’ll really have to get down to the wire here,” He looked around the room. “So how many people read what you’re supposed to?” he asked, and most of the class raised their hands. I didn’t. “How many people _didn’t_ read?” I raised my hand, not sure if I _should,_ but…I was being honest. One or two people snickered. Crap…I knew what just happened was too good to be true. I fell slowly into my seat. “How many people watched the miniseries episode for this chapter?” Nobody raised their hands. “Wow, really? You know, it says a lot when my _summer_ school class decides to read when they could be out there, running on the beaches or whatever, and my winter classes…eh, you know what’s going on.” he hoisted himself onto a wooden stool by the corner of the chalkboard. “Alright, so, for those of you that read, who here can tell me what O’Reilly was trying to say in this book when he had Gerald discover the commander’s collection of snow globes?”

The next two hours were boring and grueling. Spoilers for the book I was supposed to read that dissuaded me from actually reading it. Mr. B. coaxed the class into a discussion, which I didn’t participate in, drew diagrams of characters and symbols on the board that I couldn’t understand, and read parts of the next chapter out of the book that I didn’t follow. He was passionate, of course, but it was all lost on me. I spent that time thinking about this school, how it was sending mixed signals, if my actual school semester would be better, if this class actually counted for credit…

The bell rang again, Mr. B. dismissed us, I quickly threw on my backpack and rushed out of the room before anybody could notice me.

“Julie,” somebody behind me called. I stopped dead in my tracks. It was Lilli, right? She was the only person here who knew my name. I looked behind my shoulder – sure enough, she was walking towards me, a red and black backpack slung loosely over her shoulders. “You know where you’re going?” she asked me, fairly calmly.

I shook my head.

“You got a class after this?”

I nodded.

“You get a 15 minute break after a class, then you go to your next one, then you go home. Wanna hang out ‘til then?”

Somebody’s…asking me to hang out? No…no, they’d just…I don’t know…what would they say? For fifteen minutes? I could always get up and leave, but..I…don’t…

“You there?”

I nodded. “Uh…sure…where?”

“Commons has a few vending machines. You hungry?”

I felt my stomach. I…don’t think I had anything to eat…

“Yeah, you’re hungry. Come on, I’ll buy you something.”

“You’ll…buy me something?”

She shrugged. “Yeah, or I can just get the machine to give me something for free, but if that happens again, I might get suspended again, so I’d rather just buy you whatever.”

“Uh…okay…” I was starting to get a bit unsure about her, but…it felt like she was the first person to be genuinely nice to me at school.

Lilli motioned for me to come with her, and we walked through the halls and up to a set of stairs, where a nerdy-looking kid was talking to a friend of his.

“Xavier. Move.” Lilli said gruffly.

Xavier immediately covered his head, then relaxed a little bit. “O-oh, okay, s-sure…” he mumbled, and he pressed himself up against the wall. Lilli and I walked through the disturbance, and my uneasiness grew. Did she just…it sounded like she was threatening that kid, but…

Was this all just a set up? Was she going to embarrass me? Treat me like a toy? Abuse me? I…I don’t know. This didn’t seem good. I was worried. I didn’t like this…I had to get some sort of confirmation. “Why are you being so nice to me?” I blurted out, some of the words running into each other.

She seemed like she wasn’t expecting that question, and she shrugged again. “Tired of everyone else. Gonna see if you’re cool.”

That…didn’t really make me feel better.

We walked silently to the commons, which was basically a lunchroom, but we stopped just outside it. Right by the wall were two vending machines. Both of them looked super top-of-the-line, with a touch screen and bright green leaf designs and everything. One of them had basic snacks, the other had sodas of different brands, mainly Cheerie. Lilli looked back at me. “What’dya want?”

I thought for a moment. “Danish and water.”

Lilli nodded, and then went up to the machines. “Watch my back,” Was she actually going to…okay…I looked around the hallway, making sure nobody was paying attention. Students were walking around, but none of them really cared about us. I saw Lilli push a few buttons on the touchscreen without putting in any money, wait a few seconds, then pressed another button, and a packaged strawberry Danish came out. She did the same thing a few times on both of the machines, and she turned to me with a soda, a bottle of water, a bag of chips, and the pastry. “They put a code in them to basically give you shit for free. Failsafe or something.”

“Didn’t you say you’d get suspended?”

“If I got _caught_. And I didn’t, did I?” she smirked.

I nodded.

“Come on, still got, like…ten minutes, right?”

I nodded again. She led me to an empty table in the commons, round, and sat down. I sat down a seat apart from her, still not sure if she’d get up to anything. I opened my pastry and bit in, savoring the strawberry filling and the icing on the roof of my mouth.

“So, why in the hell did you come to Lydon, anyway? Ain’t a place to come to, if you know what I’m saying.”

I sat silent for a little bit. I still wasn’t sure if Lilli was a good person, but I didn’t want her to know what was up with me. “I…just had to go someplace else.”

“So you came to a stupid little island with nothing on it?”

I shrugged. “My mom grew up here. She said it was nice.”

Lilli raised her eyebrow, and kept talking in that curious tone. “Did you just…decide to come here?”

I shook my head. “It was decided for me.”

“Your parents here?”

I shook my head again. “I, uh, I’m living with a family friend of ours.”

Lilli nodded. “So, what else’s up with you? You seem cool.”

I bit into my Danish again, trying to think of a good way to answer that question. “I…hm…I like…history…and…I don’t know. I’m sort of a boring person when you get to know me…” I giggled without realizing it.

“Eh, I’m in the same boat…” she leaned back in her chair, pulling the front two legs off the floor. Her arms were crossed behind her head. “Not the history part. I like football. That’s about it.”

We stopped talking for a little bit. She looked up at the ceiling. I kept eating.

She was being nice to me. But she was rude to that Xavier kid. Does being rude count as being mean? But the kid she was rude to cowered like she was about to hit her. I…didn’t know. I didn’t approve of what she did, but maybe if she kept being nice to me, she could keep the people who wanted to be mean to me away…

“Still there?” she asked.

“Where would I go?” I was a bit confused by what she asked...

She waved her hand, kind of dismissively. “Just, you know, out of your own head.”

“Oh.” I do a lot of that.

“What class you got next?”

“Uh…P.E.” I said, trying not to think about having to go into a locker room and seeing all the other girls. For various reasons.

“Do you know where locker rooms are?”

I shook my head.

“I’ll show them to you.” She downed the rest of her Cheerie M A X soda and threw it in a nearby trash can, and, following her lead, I crammed the rest of the pastry in my mouth and picked up my bottle. I was this much closer to actually…getting in a locker room.

We walked through a couple of halls, past lockers, past drug use posters, past trophy cases, past the gym, and we eventually got to two little hallways that each went into a corner, going down the rightmost one.

“That one’s the girl’s,” Lilli said, pointing to the one on the right, then pat me on the shoulder. “I gotta get to my class…I’ll see you tomorrow.” She smiled at me, then left, and I watched her until she turned the corner.

I didn’t know what to think of her. I’ll leave it at that.

The locker room. The goddamned locker room. Where my figure was harassed by Chris and Kelly, other girl’s figures were flaunted, and you couldn’t go in without feeling inadequate. I hated it. I hated gym, too. I could move fast, and I was flexible, but everyone else looked so much more…graceful. Feminine. I looked like a boy. A few of the girls and the boys made sure not to make me forget that. I once overheard one of them call me ‘the one who looks like she got a sex change’ to his friend. Thankfully, that was the only time either of them directly antagonized me, unlike the Sherman Five, but it wasn’t something that you easily forget, either way.

I hated gym. I hated the stupid locker rooms, mostly, but gym was bad, too. I wish I could skip, I wish I could just not go, but…this school probably already saw me as a ‘problem child’. If I skipped, they might kick me out, and I don’t…man…

Let’s get it over with.

Nobody else was in the white concrete room. There were a few lines of red lockers and benches, a windowed room by the wall that I guess the coach sat in, and some empty shower rooms to the right that I guess weren’t functional. I hope they weren’t functional.

I looked around for anybody, went into a row of lockers away from the entrance and the little windowed room, took of my top, and put on my gym shirt. It came down to a little above my pelvis, and felt more than a bit baggy. Dammit, why don’t these things ever fit? My gym shorts also ended up coming up a bit after my knees, and I had to pull and tie the drawstrings  once, twice, then three times to make sure they wouldn’t fall off.

I put my clothes in my backpack, sat down on the bench, and waited with my hands folded in my lap. Be invisible. Be quiet. Be still.

I saw all the girls come in soon. Getting undressed, putting on their gym uniforms that – of course – looked way better on them than my potato sack. There was something about them that made me feel inferior. Of course.

I sat there stewing until a whistle blew from the right side of the room, and people started going towards it. I did too. We were gestured out by a female gym teacher wearing a tracksuit, and we entered the slightly large gym that probably doubled as an auditorium. There were stands folded into the walls on either side of the room, another level with an elevated track and more stands, and two basketball hoops on the other walls. The girls started sitting with the boys in lines, and I found an empty spot in the corner.

None of the people there were paying any attention to me. It was good. Most everyone else was preoccupied with the other people in the line. Soon, the gym teacher – a male one, the woman was with another group on the opposite side of the room – made us stretch, which was fairly easy for me, since I was already sort of limber, and then we ran around the room for a few minutes, then started walking.

I was silent. I was alone. It was goo-

“Hey, hey.” some voice sounded behind me as I walked. No, no, no – while I was in _gym_? No, no, no, that was so stupid, but…

They already knew I was knew. Crap. Why? I didn’t think I stuck out so much. Damn it, damn it…I turned to where the voice was coming from. A young-looking, fairly tall boy, thin, good-looking. He was almost bald. “Has anyone told you you’re flexible?”

What? I was already being…gross! God, that was so –

“Wait, no, I wasn’t checking you out, not like that,” he tried to correct himself, smiling, and I felt a little bit relieved. Though…he was probably lying. I tried to keep pace with him. “Hey, are you new? Or have I just not seen you around?”

“I’m new.”

“Really? Do you have any interest in gymnastics? It starts when school starts.”

“There’s a gymnastics team here?” That was a thing? Really? I didn’t know high schools even offered that, but…

“Oh, yeah, only a few years old, though. Hey, if you do join, tell the girl that runs it that Nate sent you.” he waved again, just in time for the gym teachers to call us back with a basket full of, uh, basketballs in it in the middle of the gym.

Of course, we had to play a sport that tall people were good at.

We were apparently learning about shooting for the hoops, which didn’t make me feel better at all. I tried hard, tried to aim my shots, but they always fell flat. Thankfully, some other people were missing a lot, so it was alright, I guess. I suffered for the next two hours, even with the other gym teacher’s help with my ‘form’ and my ‘poise’ and whatever. The last thirty minutes were spent playing dodgeball, thankfully not with the basketballs, and I was able to sneak around undetected, even able to throw a ball once or twice at someone random, not landing a hit.

The woman gym teacher blew her whistle after letting us play for a little bit, ushered us back into the locker room, and I quickly went back to my little area in the second row, quickly took off my shirt, put on my old one, and slid off my shorts. I didn’t sweat that much today, so I didn’t feel bad about not bringing my deodorant. Without waiting for the bell, I snuck out of the locker room, not wanting to be around all the other girls anymore. I quickly found my way out of the school into the courtyard where I had my bike, which hadn’t been stolen, thankfully, and I pedaled my way out.

I rode back to my – I mean, Rowan’s house, which was a heck of a lot harder with what felt like every damn person in their car. I ended up riding on the sidewalk a couple of times, thankfully not passing by or hitting anyone, but one time, I almost crashed into this dude in what I think was this old-fashioned suit, and when I rode past him he just…stared at me. It sent chills down my spine.

I got home, unlocked the door using the code I saw from Rowan on Saturday, and stood there.

What the hell was I supposed to do now?

When I got home back in Tennessee, my mom was there, she got off work at the same time, and she’d usually just…she was making dinner, I think, and I would just…

That’s right. I got on my laptop and played games or read stuff online.

I hurried upstairs, got in my room, and threw off my backpack. I was about to open up my laptop on my bean bag, but then I remembered how oddly embarrassed I felt whenever they were talking about the book I should’ve read. So, in order to keep that feeling from coming up again, I dug up my book from my backpack, sat on the beanbag, and read.

It was a generic dystopian novel, all things considered. Though it didn’t really concern itself with stopping the tyrannical government, more about detailing how the government worked. It was about a guy who gets a low-level position in this government, then works up through the ranks, reading stuff he shouldn’t read, and learning more about the kind of idiots that run the state. It was more of a political thriller than a revolution. Slow-paced, but I plowed through it.

By the time I finished, it was around 1540, so I pulled up my laptop and prepared to do the cycle again.

Something stopped me, though.

Lilli Nai-ming.

Who was she? Why did she just suddenly attach to me? I…was conflicted. She either wanted to double-cross me or lead me down a dark path. Maybe she wanted to push drugs on me, or something, or…it wasn’t good. Maybe I could avoid her? Sit in a different seat? Maybe I could stop going to summer school altogether – I mean, I wasn’t even on the register…

Or, maybe, maybe, I began telling myself, she wanted to be your friend.

But why? Why would anyone…if people have just been mean to me my whole life…

Have you tried to reach out to people?

Yeah! I went…I tried out for the clay target team, and I did airsoft…

Maybe she wants to be your friend. Think about that.

I did. Briefly. I came to the conclusion that I’d give it another shot. Then I started my cycle and lost myself in thought, watching dumb 12 year old player’s heads explode in Valor/Honor, finding myself on the Enzibook page for Russian humor and losing myself in it for a half an hour or two, turning on the T.V. and seeing if any news or anything was on (it wasn’t), checking public access again to see if that weird clown show was on again, (it wasn’t), typing in ‘Lilly Nyming” into my web browser’s search bar until I decided to not to, repeat, repeat, repeat, until my phone buzzed. Rowan. **Going to be late, can’t make dinner. Going to pick something up. What do you want?**

I thought for a moment. Something that would make me…happier. I guess. What normally made me happier?

**Fried chicken**

I went back to the cycle of rumination and restlessness until he texted me back. **Sounds good.**

Back to doing nothing.

By the time I heard the car in the driveway, it was almost 1900. Wow, really? I heard the door open downstairs. “Julie? You here?”

I put down my laptop and headed downstairs. “Yeah?”

“Oh! Okay,” Rowan put a briefcase by the door, then held up a plastic bag. “Got dinner!”

We sat at the table, and he placed the bag in the middle, pulling out two foam containers. “Here you are _, madam_ …”

I grimaced, but he didn’t see it, and I opened up the box. Two fried chicken thighs, made to golden perfection with the skin all curled up and crispy, with a small thing of mashed potatoes with little chives speckling the pure white mound. It looked amazing!

Rowan placed a set of silverware next to me. “Sadly, until this whole divorce thing between the McAvery’s clears up, I won’t be able to make dinner like I usually do. It’s getting _really_ nasty.”

“I understand.” I picked up the strangely non-greasy thigh and bit into the fleshy bit, tasting the crispy skin that gave way into the juicy, tender meat, chewing and swallowing, and it felt…really good. Like the stuff I used to get all the time at home!

“So, how was your first day?” Rowan smiled at me. “Naveen said you were talking to a girl in class today. Though…he didn’t seem really…well, nevermind. Is that right?”

“Oh…yeah.”

“What’s her name? Maybe I know her. Or her parents.”

“Lilli Nai-Ming.”

Rowan scratched his chin. “Nai-Ming, huh? Hm…do you know her parents? I know there’s an Edward Ming that works over at…Pierce and Price? Maybe? Hm.” He nodded.

I nodded, and kept eating.

“How was school otherwise?”

I shrugged. “Gym was okay. So was English.”

Rowan nodded.

We stayed silent for a moment. The awkwardness was palpable. Since it was already getting late, I scarfed down the rest of my food and bid him goodnight. He smiled awkwardly and waved goodbye.

I went up to my room, closed the door, and sighed.

Let’s just…go to bed.

I changed into my pajamas and threw my old clothes into the hamper, clambered into bed, and pulled up the covers over my head.

Same crap tomorrow.

 

####  **Tuesday, July 31st**

I woke up like I did yesterday, put on clothes like yesterday, but I decided to do something different, since I mostly knew where I was heading to and at school, and I guess now I could afford to waste time. I went to the kitchen, found what amounted to the snack cabinet, and tried to look for anything that would count as a good breakfast. The only good things were boxes of adult cereal – the ones that were just oats and flakes and no marshmallows or sweet stuff. No granola bars, no pastries, nothing. I guess I could just get that one girl – Lilli, right? She could do that one thing she did yesterday and get me something for free.

Look at me, condoning disobedience.

I walked outside, took a deep breath, both trying to get as much of the air into my nostrils as possible and to calm me down for the day to come. Well, yesterday wasn’t _horrible_ ¸ but I was still unsure about this place.

I got on the bike and rode to the high school, taking the same route as before, looking at the same sights that still felt new to me. I looked at the shops that I didn’t know the name of, the different street names, the parks with signs that I haven’t read before. It was a calming trip. I liked it.

I parked my bike near the bike stand again, hoping that it wouldn’t get stolen again, and I walked through the doors of the courtyard, still getting that knot in my stomach and me viewing everything in a different, more observant light. Though, it was less severe than yesterday. I didn’t imagine that I had a Clydesdale PocketPro 9mm pistol strapped to my thigh just in case of something went wrong like yesterday.

I walked up to the third floor and towards what I assumed was the C wing, hands tightened around my backpack straps. Silent. Steady.

“Hey, Julie.”

I stopped in my tracks, looked around, and saw Lilli leaning against a row of lockers. She had her phone in her hand, and her other one in her pocket.

“You busy after this?” she asked me, smiling weirdly.

I stood there. “After…what?”

“School.”

I froze.

Someone was…asking me to do something? Already?! On my second day?! And…I only knew her for a day! She wanted me…to…

“You there?” she asked, doing one of those ‘really?’ gestures with her hand.

“Uh, uhm…uh…” I could not make words. I literally could _not_ make words. Oh, God! This wasn’t good. But if I didn’t say anything, she wouldn’t leave me alone, and she’d keep hounding me, but…this might be good. She hasn’t antagonized me yet. She hasn’t been mean to me. She broke school rules for me! But she didn’t seem like the kind of person to care about breaking rules...

“Julie?”

“YES! I, uh – yes, yes, I’d like to…uh, I’m free, yeah…” I snapped to attention. I could feel my eyes get wide.

“Cool,” she brought up her phone for a second, then looked at me. “Told my friend about you, and he wants to meet up at this place in town.”

I started to look around, and there were…one or two people…looking at us. My cheeks became a little bit red. Lilli didn’t seem to notice. Someone else? Already?! This early in…I haven’t even been here a week! I’m already…

‘You cool with that?”

“Where? Uh, where would we be…who’m I meeting with, and, uh…”

“Probably at The Drive-In. It’s a dive bar a couple of blocks away.”

“A…bar?”

“A.

“Ain’t exactly a ‘family’ place, but it’s not, like, aggressively a bar or anything, right? Plus, there won’t be any, like, drunks or anything at one PM on a Tuesday.”

I nodded.

“Oh, and the guy we’re meeting, Raul, he’s a good guy. Sort of…eh, he’s good. Chill. You’re, like, the first new girl that came here since I started high school, so he wanted to meet you.”

I nodded again. “Sounds good.” Inside, I was bouncing for joy, screaming in this sort of excitement, and maybe a little bit – a lot of bit, actually – nervous. I was being invited to something! The last time I had been invited to something was Karrie Mabel’s sleepover birthday party in 7th grade! This was…oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, I was…

I had a friend.

“You okay? You’re smiling really…”

“Oh! Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, I’m fine…” I laughed out of nervousness. “Hey, uh…I didn’t get breakfast today, so ca-can you do that vending machine trick for me?”

Lilli looked at her phone. “We got time before class. Come on.’ She pulled herself from off the wall, and started walking to the stairwell, blocked by that kid from yesterday – Xavier, I think, still talking to the other kid.

“Xavier, do I have to beat you like last year?” Lilli groaned.

What.

“N-no, sorry.” Xavier shrunk into his shoulders and stuck by the wall.

_What._

“D-did you just t-threat-threaten to…” I stuttered out. She seriously just…oh my God, I was about to hang out with a bully. A literal bully! She would turn on me or take compromising pictures of me or something and she’d just beat me up behind the parking lot one day and _look at her_! Look at those muscles! She could break my rib or fracture my skull and oh my God, oh my God, oh my God…

She shrugged. Shrugging? “He’s a dick. Don’t worry.”

“B-but you’d d-do it to me soon! You’ll turn into a bully and you’d beat me up like you did with that kid and, and, and you’d just be mean to me and…” I just started talking, letting the words just come out, trying to get all my thoughts that were bouncing around in my head in order. It didn’t work.

“What? No. Listen, if I didn’t like you, I would’ve let you know, right? Besides, I wouldn’t hurt you. You’re _literally_ half my size.”

“But…but…’

“Fine, if you don’t want me to talk to you anymore, I won’t.”

I stood frozen. My first friend. - gone like that. No, no, no, no….it can’t end like this. “Would you…would you be mean to me?”

“Probably not. ‘less you turn out to be a grade-A bitch. And, so far, you’re just, like, some tiny shy girl. Not an asshole.”

I stood there for a few seconds, conflicted and confused. I…this girl was mean. To other people, though. And she was offering, no, she was more than offering to be my friend. It was like she was already my friend. If…if I stood by her, if she turned into my friend, she’d keep the bad people away. The ones that actually wanted to hurt me. So I wouldn’t have to imagine taking it into my own hands. “I’m…sorry…”

“It’s fine,” she smiled and continued down the stairs. I…I wasn’t sure about…this was so… _weird_ …”Listen, I wouldn’t hurt you. Not unless you hurt me first.”

“I won’t.” I might imagine it, though…

We hurried down to the vending machine hole, I told her that I’d like a Danish again, she got me one, and we went back up to the room. She seemed…I still didn’t know what to make of her, but if she would keep the bad girls away that would pick on me…

And, the most important part, I had a friend date today! What was that called? I don’t think it was a friend-date…unless…no, it wasn’t.

We sat back down in the seats we had yesterday, and I quickly ate that strawberry Danish, letting it fill my stomach and make up for the fact that I hadn’t eaten for almost 12 hours.

Since I actually read the book this time, I was able to mostly follow along the discussion for today. It was all stuff that had flown over my head from last night, and it was pretty straightforward minus the stuff I didn’t understand, like the really complicated metaphors O’Reily tried to give us that I had a feeling every English teacher was making up, and the author didn’t really mean anything when he wrote that down, but whatever. After two hours, he dismissed us.

Lilli met with me outside of the classroom. “We gonna hang like yesterday?”

“Yeah! An-and…after school…right?

“Yeah. Do you need a ride? Or money?”

“You’re…offering me money?”

She scratched her neck. “I mean, yeah, I _guess_ I can pay for lunch, but…”

“Oh, no, er, I have a, uh, debit card. But, uh…I’m just not used to people being…nice…”

She looked shocked, and we both walked down the hallway. “What’dya mean?”

“Uh…uhm…” I felt one of my wrists, wringing my hand around the bone and the vein. I…should I tell her? “My last school…uh…there were these five girls that just….didn’t like me. Really didn’t like me, and they would….do bad stuff to me…”

“How bad?” Lilli asked, sort of curiously.

“Uh…they’d…like…make fun of my body, tell me that I wouldn’t get a boyfriend without a” I paused, wringing and massaging my fingers in my hands. How much should I tell her? “They said…I should….I should just consider _becoming_ a boy, that I already looked like one, and they’d elbow me in the head whenever we passed in the hallways, really hard, too…and they’d do stuff like…” I wiped my eye a little bit, but I tried to disguise it as scratching it. “I think they were taking pictures of me in the locker room, and they’d just spread a lot of rumors about me…’cause I like guns, they’d say that I was butch, or that I was psycho, and, or, they’d say that I was anorexic…sometimes, they’d zip tie my locker shut, and, like, they’d…”

“The hell did they do all that? What’d you do to piss them off?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I don’t….I don’t…I just existed, and, I think, I think they just saw me as a little girl ‘cause I’m so short, and…I don’t know.” I started sniffling. I couldn’t help it.

“That…why you left?”

I left because of something else related to them. “Yeah.”

“Shit, man, I’m sorry to hear that.”

I nodded.

“Hey, listen, tell me if anybody tries to pull that shit with you,” Lilli said, sounding scarily serious.  We were in the doorway to the stairwell now. “I’ll put the fear of God in ‘em.”

I nodded. She was threatening to beat people up now on my behalf. Great! I was a mob boss now! Christ, two days in and I’m already…I’m…

It’s not like I didn’t do the same thing, but I was trying to get away from that. So far, nobody’s been…it’s fine. It’s okay. I wouldn’t do that again. I wouldn’t mess with anyone again…

I sighed.

“You okay?”

I nodded.

She looked up at the ceiling. “You know, this place…it’s just boring, really. There’s a few dicks, well…I mean, it’s a rich vacation town. There’s a lot of assholes who think they’re better than you ‘cuz they got more zeroes in their bank accounts, but all they’re going to do is just wave their dumb little sports cars and phones in your face, not, like, kick you in the shins or anything.”

I nodded again.

“And car keys can be bent. Phones can be thrown against walls.”

I froze. That…”Did you actually d-do that? Wouldn’t you…”

She shrugged. “Eh, once or twice or a dozen times. They just said they fell down the stairs or something,” she smiled a bit too wickedly for my tastes, but it quickly faded. “Their parents just buy ‘em new ones. Fuckers don’t know what it’s like…nevermind.”

I thought for a moment. How many things can you get out of by saying you fell down the stairs? “Uh…are you a…do you beat people up to…like…is-is it a thing?”

“Honestly, uh…I haven’t been arrested yet. If that’s what you’re asking. Police know me, mostly ‘cuz a Cantonese girl that dresses like I do is _obviously_ pushing drugs or whatever the fuck. But I've done some fun stuff. Gave a kid a busted lip for calling me a fake, but that was on the beach. Way outside school grounds, right? I punched that Xavier kid in the stomach few times for asking to be my boyfriend in exchange for him doing my homework. Dude thought he was hot nerd shit until I put him in his place. Threw up like some baby afterwards. Done some smaller stuff like stepping on toes, broke a finger - few, actually. Some guy tried to keep me from leavin’ the room in middle school ‘til I kissed him, he got his hand slammed in a door. Broke, uh…” she pulled out her hand, pointing to the ridges her bones made. “This one, this one, most of ‘em, really...pretty much anybody that tries to do some pick-up shit gets a fat lip. All that “meek yellow girl” shit. That, or if they call me, y’know, _those_ words, or if they bow to me - dhit happens wau too often. Kicked a dude - actually, dude and a girl between their legs, separate times, and I smashed some girl’s car window for almost running over my bike. Got some nasty cuts on my fist for that one.” She showed me her fist. It had a few tiny scars on it. Gross.

But…so she…Lilli…she actually…she was actually violent…and…

I was too. I shouldn’t be scared. But I didn’t know if I could…be with her. But this would probably be the only time I’ve ever been with someone…like…someone would come to me to be my friend…

We got to the same place we sat in yesterday. I sat in my chair, thinking about my options.

I could befriend a bully, or stay alone for the rest of the year.

I gulped.

“Everything cool?”

“I don’t…know…if….”

“What?”

“You seem…” I mumbled, a little bit afraid for what I was about to see.

“Hey, if you want me to leave you alone, that’s fine. Don’t need trouble like me around.” She leaned forward onto the table, drinking her soda.

I just realized that…I was starting to sound like a hypocrite. She didn’t know it, though. I thought about _doing_ this stuff all the time, but she…actually did it. That’s…there were a lot of differences between me and her, but that was the big one.

“No, no…I…” I sighed. “Bless your heart, but...yeah, honestly…sometimes, I think about…doing that sort of stuff…like, beating people up or shooting them. I just…I never thought I’d start to like someone who actually did that sort of stuff…”

“Huh. Didn’t have you pegged as a girl that’d do that.”

“I…a lot of people think that.”

“I mean, shit, I don't go out to do this shit to people. Someone disrespects me, they get what's comin’. Y’know? So I ain't gonna fuck with you or anything. And I know who here’s just giant assholes and who here’s cool. We’ll have a few of the same classes next year, probably, so it’ll be easy.”

“Uh…how old are you?”

“18.”

“Wait, how can we have the same classes?” I asked, suddenly perking up. “You’re…like…”

“I…might’ve been held back a year.” She shrugged.

“Oh.”

She shrugged again.

I didn’t want the conversation to die right now. Not now! “You mentioned a beach, right?”

“Yeah. West side of the island's beaches. The one closest to the shore, the one by that sort-of-river, it’s just rocks.”

“Could we go?”

“Why? It’s just beach.”

I fidgeted my hands. Should I…why not? “I’ve never been to a beach before.”

“Really? Ain’t Georgia coastal?”

“Oh, no, I’m, uh, I’m from Tennessee, and…there’s a few lakes, lots of caves, nothing big like an ocean, though.”

“Sure. We can go in a week or two. Honestly, there’s a few parts of the coast that are just dumb tourist shit, like, beach bars, cabanas, theme park, a yacht port, but there’s one or two more, like, private places.”

“What else is there here?”

She sighed, rolling her eyes. “Absolutely fucking nothing. There’s a war museum that’s small enough you can see fucking everything there, same thing with the fishing museum, there’s a little spot of protected forest with some dumb throwback lodge, the county courthouse that doesn’t do shit, big shopping plaza that’s all outside your price range, cheap pier park, uh…like, the only things here are worth doing over and over are that there’s a few good places to eat, like, with different styles and everything, but other than that, it’s either hang out with friends, walk around, or go to the mainland state and do shit in the next town over.”

“Oh…when my mom talked about living here, she said there was a lot to do.”

“Fuck no. I dunno, apparently it was different in the 70’s before all the Yuppies moved here and made it this stupid little pure rich-class town. Like, actual cool places, not just restaurants and beach and stuff that costs way more money than you have, like jetski rentals or fishing tours or whatever. And after Christmas, none of that matters, ‘cuz it all shuts down.”

“Really?”

“Like, uh…most of the restaurants and the museum and the lodge stay open. Oh, uh, sometimes the lodge has stuff going on, like…well, it’s usually just wine tastings and rich single socials, but sometimes there’s a dinner special or some barbeque that’s worth going to. And once the _leaf peepers_ leave and winter starts hitting, we turn into some dumbass Christmas - I mean, _Holiday_ village, I mean, fuck, we ain't putting up a giant man-orah or anything, it's just obviously Christmas. Fuck it. Anyway, after Christmas, weather gets worse, noreasters start coming, rich folks leave for the winter, only people left are the guys that live here.”

“What’re…uh…leaf peepers?”

“Oh, Jesus Christ, don’t get me started,” Lilli sighed. She looked actually angry. “They’re these retard assholes from cities like New York and Boston and places that’re too urban to see trees. So they come here and take pictures of the leaves turning orange and shit and just…God. Like, really? You waste gas and drive five fucking hours to see _leaves_ ? That’s pretty much why we have that little dot of forest by the North and the lodge, to make these fucking people happy. And you better be damn sure we make that fucking forest as nice as it could be. Bridges over creeks, little wooden signposts, a fucking _spring_ , like, honestly, half of it is manmade. It’s bullshit.”

“I…that’s a thing that people do? Really?”

She nodded, still fuming a bit.

“I…don’t have a lot of experience with…like…that. Knoxville…we only see people going to see Smoky Mountain. But the only other...well, the biggest one in the state is Memphis. Knoxville ain’t Memphis.”

“What’s even in Memphis, anyway? Barbeque and country music?”

I giggled, though I still felt a bit shy. “Yeah…the ribs are okay. I don’t really like country music…I’m kinda a failed Southern girl. I don’t like sports, or barbeque, or the same kind of music, and I’m not really into religion, or…I like guns, but that’s about it.”

Lilli nodded.

“I like deep fried stuff, though.” I said, sort of as an afterthought.

“Really? There’s this place in town, Marina’s, they’re, like…uh…I dunno. They’re one of those diners that don’t know what to put on the menu, so they have a shitton of everything else. But if you bring in, like, food or candy or whatever and pay them ten bucks, they’ll deep fry it for you.”

“What? Really?!”

She shrugged. “It’s neat.”

“Oh man, I gotta go now…that sounds…”

“Unhealthy? You’d probably gain, like, fifteen pounds if you try that.”

“Nah, I got a high metabolism.”

“Lucky.”

We sat there for a moment in silence before Lilli took out her phone. “Lemme get your number.”

“Oh! Yeah. Okay!” I pulled out my phone and read my number to her.

“Cool,” She did the same. Her phone was cracked, and the entire back of it was held together with duct-tape, like it was the only thing keeping it from shattering into pieces. “Think it’s about time to leave. Want me to walk you to the lockers?”

“Yeah.”

We did so. It didn’t take long. We didn’t talk.

“I’ll meet you in that courtyard with the tables and the bike rack to show you how to get to the place.” She said.

“Okay.” I was getting more and more excited at this. I was going out! With a friend! For the first time! Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God…

“See you in an hour.”

“Yeah! See you!”

She left.

I hurried into the locker room, the adrenaline and the heart that was pumping blood into my body at two miles a second making me almost-instantly put on my gym uniform, tie it three times, and I sat on the bench and listened to my body thump with excitement. The locker room soon swelled with voices, clothes rustling, elastic snapping. I sat there and waiting, vibrating on the bench, until the whistle blew from the gym teacher and I heard her voice hustling people into the gymnasium.

We sat in the same lines as yesterday, did the same stretches as yesterday, stuff that I had already done a million times before in my old gym classes and another million times when my mom dragged me into one of her classes or even made me do it at home. But it was easy.

The running was just me pushing myself as fast as I could go. I even lapped that kid from yesterday – Nate, I think his name was?

The basketball was pretty boring. I tried. I failed. It was a familiar song-and-dance.

The whistle blew again, the gym teacher hustled us all inside, me being the last in line. I was about to enter the locker room before I felt a rolled up bundle of paper on my shoulder.

“Hold up.”

I gulped, my good mood rapidly evaporating off of my body, and turned up towards the speaking. The gym teacher. The glare from her glasses made it even worse.

“I haven’t seen you before, and as far as I know, you’re not on my roster. Where’d you get that uniform?”

I gulped again. “Uh…uh…Mr. Bandy gave it to me…”

“Wait, why’d he do that? Why’re you here?”

“Because, uh…I’m taking this…I’m going to this school next year, and…he…I needed to get the layout of the school…like, I needed to know it, and…”

The teacher, who according to her I.D. was Mrs. Lucia, put her paper to the chin. “School doesn’t offer credits for summer school classes you join late, do they?”

I shook my head.

“So why are you here?”

I paused. There…was a reason, wasn’t there? But I couldn’t remember it.

“Well, if you don’t have to be here, you don’t have to be here. If anyone asks, I’ll say you’ve been in my class, Ms…”

“Julie Boucher.”

“Yeah. I’ll say you’re here, but you don’t, so…” she scratched her brown hair. “Alright, come on, get out of here.”

“So, you’ll...thanks! Really!” my eyes went wide, and I felt them shimmer. She was so nice! I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t have to go to gym anymore!

She shrugged. “Come on, get dressed and go home. And don’t come back unless you want to.”

I nodded excitedly, like my head was going to bounce off, and I rushed inside the locker room. I hurried out of my gym uniform, though the knot gave me a little trouble, but I didn’t care. First, no gym, which meant no locker room, and right now I had my first friend-date ever! With Lilli, who was hopefully nice and I didn’t have terrible sense of judgement, and somebody else that I forgot. But the main thing was that it meant I had a friend! This was great!

I slung my bookbag over my back, headed out of the locker room before all of the other girls, and ran out of the school, smiling wider than I already was that my bike wasn’t stolen, saddled over it, and started pedaling out.

This place was awesome!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is a bit late, but blame...whatever for that. I was going to go through this with a fine-toothed comb but I really only ended up adding a few tidbits here and there.  
> Hey! It's a new friend! Maybe she'll be a part of the party? She's going to be a Social Link either way, otherwise I wouldn't have pointed her out.  
> We have about one more chapter to go through until shit really kicks off. Thankfully, I don't think you guys will have to wait longer.


	4. Taking Chances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I-I don't know he's okay...but there's people what want to talk to me...him and her.

I rode to the address that Lilli told me, still somewhat unsure about this whole thing. Who was Raul? Why did Lilli want me to meet him so suddenly, like, literally 24 hours after I met her? What if this was a plot? A sort of stick up or…

No. This was…you’re overthinking. You’re being too sensitive. Maybe she just wants to be your friend! Maybe all those things she did…punching that Xavier kid in the stomach…the other thing…I don’t know. Maybe those were all in the past? Maybe she’s turning over a new leaf? I…

If she does anything against you, anything mean or malicious or anything that makes you feel uncomfortable, call it. Leave. Don’t stand up for that.

Even though I’d probably be too scared to stand up for myself that way.

I eventually got to the place. It was a one-story brick building with a blackboard by the door that I couldn’t read since I was still almost on the sidewalk, a few tables outside, and a wooden plaque above the door that simply said ‘The Drive In’. But…where would people…maybe they offer takeout? Whatever. I don’t think it matters much.

I carefully got off my bike, wheeled it over to the side of the building, and waited for anyone to show up. I read the chalkboard – their specials were mostly alcohol and a few uninspired-sounding hot dogs and sandwiches. I sighed – this was really a bar. But not every place here was a bar, was it?

After a few minutes of waiting, Lilli came down the sidewalk, rounding the corner. She smiled when she saw me. “Raul’s already inside.”

“Oh…uh…” I mumbled, trying to figure out why sitting inside was a bad idea, then I remembered what I was thinking of. “I, uh, I don’t have a bike chain. Could we, uh, sit out here?”

“Sure.” She said quickly, then walked inside the building for what felt like a second or two before coming back out again, followed by a relatively…

Well…he was sort of attractive? Brown skin, maybe Hispanic, judging by his name, though his hair was blonde. It was dyed, at least, I think it was, but it wasn’t neon yellow. It looked believable. He was also wearing a pair of yellow glasses and a green v-neck with some sort of tentacle pattern on it that looked sort of cool, a pair of slightly torn jeans, and with a small sort of bag slung around his shoulder. He didn’t look…troublesome. Though I didn’t know what troublesome was.

He – Raul – looked at me and smiled, maybe sort of smirked. “Heya.”

I sort of waved, then avoided making eye contact for a little bit.

“You’re Julie, right? That short for anything?”

“Uh…” Yes. “No.”

“Nice to meet ya, man. I’m Raul Douglas.” He stuck out a hand.

I nodded.

Lilli was already seated at one of the tables, black and made out of that cheap woven metal material. There was a thing that restaurants had – I don’t know what they were called, honestly – the one with the ketchup and mustard and napkins and menus and stuff.

“So, you’re new here, right?” Raul asked, taking a chair opposite of Lilli. I carefully sat in the last remaining one. “From…Georgia, right?”

I shook my head. “Tennessee.”

“Huh, really?” he glanced at Lilli. “Damn it, Ming, you gave me the wrong information!” he said, though it was obvious he was joking. I think. I hope. I didn’t want this kid to be mean. I’ve had enough of that.

Lilli shrugged.

“Uh, so, first time up here? To Lydon?”

I nodded. “I’ve never been…like…up to New England before.”

“So you stick to the Southern states?”

“I stick to Tennessee.”

“Oh. Huh. Well, I’ve never been down there, but I’ve seen pictures. This place is a lot different than a lot of other towns. New England sorta exists in a bubble, right?”

I shrugged. “So you’ve lived here long enough…to…like, know that?”

“Lived here all my life. Parents’re from here, too.”

“Okay.”

“How much of town have you seen?”

“I’ve…uh…I’ve ridden through it…four…a couple of times. It’s different. I haven’t…really…been anywhere, though…”

“There’s a ton of places here. It’s a pretty cool place to live if you know what to do. Plus, we got an outlet mall a stone’s throw from the bridge, and then there’s a few other cool places in the town across from here.”

“Don’t lie to her, dude,” Lilli groaned. “Listen, this place gets boring fast. If ya got zeroes, yeah, you'll find something. Not us. Like I said, only fun thing to do here is to eat or go to the beach during the summer.”

Raul rolled his sort-of-blue eyes, though maybe the glare from his glasses messed up the color. “Well, that’s one way of looking at it.”

I looked down at the concrete between the wicker holes in the table, then I heard the glass door open from the left of us. Out came a waiter, slightly older gentlemen, white t-shirt and black jeans. "Hey! Welcome to the Drive In. Name’s Gary, I’ll be taking care of you.” Normal stuff, I guess. He pulled out a pen and paper. “Anything to drink?”

“NEO, please.” Raul said, not even looking at the menu.

“I’ll have one, to, and she wants a Koffingston.” Lilli said, pointing to me, and my eyes instinctively went wide. She was already…what? What the hell is a Koffingston? Is that alcohol? It sounded like alcohol! I…oh my God, this was bad…this was bad…

Gary nodded, walked back in after promising us he’ll have that right out. I leaned over. “What the hell is a Koff-ing-ston?!”

“It’s a soda. Uh, maybe that’s too nice of a term…” Raul said. That didn’t make me feel better…

“It’s a Massachusetts thing,” Lilli said. “Old-ass soda that people here drink but nobody likes. Well, I like it. If you’re going to live here, you might as well get it out of the way.”

“Wait, how long are you staying here? Lilli told me it wasn’t permanent, but she didn’t say how long.” Raul asked, leaning into our conversation.

“Uh…’til next summer.”

“Awesome. So you’ll get to see a full semester at Chelsea!”

“I guess.”

“Did Lilli tell you why you’re cool?”

“Uh…no?”

“Well, y’see, Lydon’s one of the…richer towns in the county,” Lilli explained. “Like, goddamn Yuppies live over here, on their little McMansions on Ashleigh and Jefferrie on the Southwest part of the town. They enjoy the  _ quaint little small coastal town atmosphere _ or whatever the shit, but then once the leaves fall and the nor’easters start brewin’, they screw off to the Caymans or California or wherever.”

“I…think what Lilli’s trying to say is…the people that live here year-round and work full-time, we’re close-knit. And since none of the more affluent families stay long enough to have their kids go through school, we haven’t seen any new people in…well, a while. At least in our grade. You're a junior, right?”

 

“Yeah”

I heard the door open again, and Gary came out with two glasses of soda and one bottle, with a label that really looked like a beer label. A barrel, with ‘Koffingston’ superimposed on it in old-style flowy text. The cap was already off.

I brought it under my nose and sniffed the liquid inside, feeling little specks of carbonation tickle my nostrils. It smelled…like…natural? That was the only way to put it. Like it was made with roots and plants rather than chemicals, and, unlike Cheerie’s or Bocoa’s generic ‘sweet’ or ‘midlly cherry’ scent, this one actually had a strong scent.

“Dude, come on, down it. Ain't a fucking wine tasting.” Lilli rolled her eyes, before rotating her hand around fluidly, like a train wheel.

I nodded, then placed the bottle under my lips, and tipped it up.

I gagged.

It tasted like  _ literal _ cold medicine! Really bitter, but it had this indescribable fruit taste that only gave it a indecipherable hint of sweetness, but, otherwise, it filled my mouth with this complete bitterness, almost scorching my taste buds, or, more accurately, steamrolling them flat with this foul, bubbly soda. The scent from it drifted up the bottle and into my nostrils, also flooding them with this disgustingly natural sensation, like crushed up plant leaves or rotting flowers, and almost all of my senses became flooded by this awful thing.

I brought the bottle down, almost smashing it on the table accidentally, swallowed everything, and I couldn’t help but start to sputter and cough. It made something trigger in my brain, something…nauseating and exhausting.

“Oh, Christ, that bad, huh?” Raul asked, his voice sympathetic.

I nodded, taking a few deep breaths to cleanse my mouth of the total filth. That was awful! Absolutely awful!

“Aw, come on, it’s not that bad.”

I shook my head, my eyes still bulging open from the flood of sensation. I could still feel it on my tongue. “No…it  _ was _ that bad.”

“Whatever,” Lilli took the bottle from my side of the table and put it too her mouth, loudly gulping it down. “See? It’s good."

“To you.” Raul sighed, then looked over at me, and saw my poor, suffering self. He wordlessly handed me his glass of NEO, and I took it and started drinking it greedily. 

Lilli leaned back in her chair. “Shit, I dunno what else to say. You’re gonna be bored here.”

“Well, were you in any clubs at your old school? We have a lot of them here.” Raul suggested, obviously trying to be supportive.

I sighed. “No, not really.”

“Huh. Well, you can join some new ones, right? Like, I’m in Journalism, photographer and writer. You could join me, right?”

“And write about nothing.”

“Shut up, Lilli.”

I sighed, and kept looking past the metal table. “I…I don’t know…”

“Hey, maybe something will come up for you.”

I don’t think so. I exhaled a little bit silently, rubbing the area beneath my eyes, not because I was sad or anything, but something was making them hard to keep open.

“Oh, hey, why don’t we get something for lunch?” Raul quickly said. I guess he saw my fairly defeated face. Lilli slid me over a menu, which was basically just a trifolded piece of paper. I could already tell half of it would be beer. I used a hand to pull it open, then looked at the cutesily-named ‘Opening Acts’ section, which I guessed were appetizers. I wasn’t really hungry.

Deep Fried Bacon - $6.

“So, what’re you getting?” Lilli asked, but not to me.

Raul shrugged. Neither of them were looking at the menu. “Same old.”

“Deep fried bacon…” I muttered to myself, staring at the menu option as my eyes started to unfocus a little bit.

“Eh, I’ll just get the mac and cheese.” Lilli sighed. 

“Deep fried bacon…”

Raul raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you ever get tired of that?” 

“Is the deep fried bacon any good?”

The conversation stopped.

Raul glared at me. “You’re not…seriously going to get that, are you?” 

“I’m not sure. That’s why I asked if it was…uh…” I said, not sure what I was about to say.

“You’d gain, like, fifteen pounds.” Lilli said.

“I weigh fifteen pounds…” I mumbled, sort-of-jokingly.

“No. You don’t.”

“I’m getting it. I want to get it.” I felt some sort of…confidence in me. I didn’t know why. Part of me wanted to suppress it as much as I could, since it was just so… _ alien _ .

Lilli rolled her eyes. 

The waiter came out again, and everyone put in their orders. Gary nodded at me and smiled when I said deep-fried bacon.

Raul looked at me. “You’re gonna die, dude.”

“No, I’m fine.” I smiled, a bit mischievously, feeling a small bit of electricity tingle my mind. I could tell…for the first time in my life, I felt like what they were saying wasn’t malicious. Maybe it was because of their facial expressions. I could see a small hint of a smile on their faces. 

I felt  _ wanted _ .

Lilli and Raul talked amongst themselves as I let these almost scary feelings of confidence, camaraderie, and…I felt actually… _ wanted  _ for the first time in a long time. 

“You there?”

“Huh?” I glanced upwards and saw Lilli looking at me expectantly. “Oh. Yeah. I’m good.”

“So, Julie,” Raul started, smiling towards me. “You’re gonna be living here a while, right? Anything you wanna know about here?”

I paused, noticing that I had been swinging my legs for a while, and I stopped so they wouldn’t see me as a little kid or something. “Uh…” I remembered what had happened on Sunday, with the weird clown show.  I had managed to block it out of my memory for a while, but every few hours I got reminded of it and it sucked.  “Do you know about something called…Mr. It?

Raul sighed and starting rubbing his hand on his face.

“That’s that…clown show, right?” Lilli asked.

“Yeah, it’s ‘that clown show’,” Raul shook his head. “It’s pretty much this public-access TV show made for stoners from M.U. It’s bad and confusing and annoying. Don’t watch it.”

I nodded. “Uh, and, uh, the other question I have is…uh, how come there’s no chain sto-“

Lilli started snickering.

“What?”

“Do you  _ know _ how careful this town is planned?” Lilli laughed. “You ain’t getting any chain stores or Quik Chiks or Springings ‘round here.”

“Uh, it’s cause the board of selectmen ‘round here and the town planners and all that are really adamant about keeping up the town’s atmosphere,” Raul started to explain. “Any private business has to follow a certain set of guidelines for building new places. A lot of the corporations, I mean, minus the really big ones, really don’t care about that, so they skip this place over. There’s a Vince’s near the beach, some fast food places got special contracts to set up beach shacks, and we have a few gas stations near the west side of town, that’s about it.” 

“Oh.” 

“That’s why every building in town looks the same.” Lilli said, gesturing to the rows of stores on the opposite side of the street. They all looked like they were just copy and pasted with different colors and sizes, and a couple of differences here and there.

“It’s…very stringent. Heck, the codes for putting up a sign is nine pages long. And unless you’re a municipality building, you can’t build higher than three stories.” Raul said.

“Oh.”

The door opened to the left of us, and our waiter came out, and before I knew it I had a plate of steaming-hot strips of completely deep-fried meat in front of me, small wafts of crisped, tender bacon hitting my nostrils, tempting me to take a huge bite even if Lilli and Raul were looking at me weirdly.

I picked up the first strip of four, feeling a small trace of grease on my fingers, yawned, stretched my mouth, and bit into it. The crispy shell of breading gave way from my teeth, letting the bacon out and gracing my tongue with the taste of the charred, perfectly cooked meat, the entire strip snapping in half with a satisfying crunch, and freeing more of the juice and the grease.

Lilli and Raul were looking at me like I just bit into a puppy.

“Mmph?” I mumbled, trying to say ‘what’ while my mouth was filled with delicious, tender meat.

The two of them kept staring. Their gazes slowly filled me with shame, for reasons I couldn’t really figure out, and I swallowed the rest of the bacon, put it on the plate, and slowly pushed it away.

“You’re fine, man, just…I didn’t know that was a  _ thing _ …” Lilli mumbled.

“No, it’s good…I’m just not hungry…”

“Whatever you say.”

I stared ahead at the wall as the two of them kept talking. A lump slowly inflated in my throat, and my eyes started straining on me. I didn’t notice it at first, but as their food bowls depleted, my eyelids started becoming harder to keep open.

I heard my name being called. I looked up.

“Yo. Jules,” Lilli glared at me. “You okay?”

“Huh?”

“You look way tired.”

I thought for a moment, noticing that I’ve been scratching the wire chair to give myself something to do. “Uh…uhm…I don’t think so.”

“Try to say that to me without blinking so often.”

I tried to stretch my eyes open, but it felt…weird. Like I was trying too hard.

“Do you wanna call it?”

“No, no, no, it’s fine, I can…”

“What’s wrong?”  Raul asked. The two of them looked…actually concerned.

“I just feel…tired. But I’m fine! I can…I’m okay…”

Raul leaned in. “Dude, your eyes are really…”

“Maybe it’s a bad reaction to the Koffi?” Lilli suggested.

Raul shook his head. 

“Maybe…the salt-air is getting to her?”

“What the hell does that even mean?”

“No, guys, I’m okay…” I said, accidentally whimpering.

The two of them looked at each other for a second. 

“Uh…” Lilli started. “Hey, maybe you should head home? Uh, not saying that in a bad way, but…you look like shit.”

I sluggishly pulled out my phone, struggling with the pocket a little bit. My hands felt lethargic. I turned on the camera, then looked at myself. After studying it for a few moments, trying to make sense of it, I noticed that my eyes were slightly bloodshot and lazy-looking. I looked and felt awful.

“I can pay for your lunch and ever…uh…” Lilli started, before she coughed awkwardly. “Hey, Raul, can you pay?”

“Christ, only because it’s an emergency!” Raul sighed, putting his hand to his temple. “At least, I think it is. Really though, go home and get some sleep. Or, uh…get some caffeine in you.”

I nodded.

Raul smiled. “Hey, it was nice meeting you. Get some rest, alright?”

“Okay.”

I pried myself up from the chair, stretched, and made my way over to my backpack and my bike.

“See you tomorrow.” Lilli called. I tried to smile and waved back. 

I thought for a moment, then decided that…my entire body felt weak. I couldn’t really ride it. I didn’t want to collapse.

I walked down the corner a little bit, then, when I was out of earshot of everyone, I struggled with my phone again, put in Rowan’s address, making a few typos, finding out it was ten or twenty minutes away, and began the long trek home, my arms feeling heavy as I rolled the bike along with me, my shoulders slumped, and yawning every few minutes. I…seriously felt like just rolling up and sleeping. My mind was clouded, my nerves were stunted, and…I was just so  _ tired _ .

I passed by a few people, none of them gave me any mind. I passed by a fountain, and when I saw that nobody was around I splashed a few handfuls of water in my face, but I still felt…absolutely dog-tired. This was…ugh…

I kept walking. I felt heavy. My mouth still had that aftertaste of that soda stuff. I wish I had brought my earbuds.

“Young lady?”

I paused in my tracks. Some guy…some older dude was talking to someone. But it was probably someone else, right? I…yeah…

I looked around. Behind me was a…frightening-looking man. Tall, cold, sharp suit, pale, almost albino skin.

“Do you need any help?”

Something about his face, his dress…it made my shoulders freeze. I kept staring at him, trying to size him up, which didn’t help since my mind was full of clouds and fuzz. I…didn’t trust him. I just didn’t. I couldn’t tell why, but I just…

“I’m…I’m okay.” I said, slowly backing away, rolling my bike with me.

The freaky dude just kept staring at me, piercing my soul, sending shivers down my dulled back, until I managed to get the courage to break eye contact with him and turn around.

“Tonight…” he said as I kept walking. “Tonight you will face the death of your conscious. Fight against it, tame it, master it.”

I tried not to hear it. I really tried  _ not _ to hear it. I just kept walking. He was homeless. He was crazy. He was probably off of his meds! He was just…oh, God, this place…

I hated this place.

I pushed my bike and tried to make myself move faster than a crawl, eventually walking at a regular pace while still dragging my 50-pound bike with my spaghetti arms, my backpack was filled with bricks and cinderblocks and creating crease marks in my skin, the sun was floating around the sky like a summer firefly,  the air was choking me, I was shaking and trembling, I coughed a few times, I just felt…awful. Completely awful. For no reason.

After what felt like an hour, I finally reached the house. I lugged my bike over to the side by the driveway, climbed up the steps, plugged in the door code, and almost collapsed once I felt the AC hit my skin . It felt…ugh.

I should probably just go to bed.

Yeah.

I pulled myself up the steps, dropped my backpack, and fell onto the bed, my arms open, seeping into the mattress, letting my eyes close, but, then, as an afterthought, I sent out a text to Rowan, my hands lazily pushing the keys.  **Going to bed early odn’t wake meup**

I finally closed my eyes, my phone still in my hand, and sighed deeply.

Please, just let this day end…

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo! Progress! More friends! A hint that something's not right, in case you haven't figured it out by the story description that I'm still not really happy with!
> 
> So, yeah, next chapter is when things start get supernatural, and we'll see Julie's Persona. Yeah! If you want some hints, she belongs to the Fool arcana. Her Persona is very much the archtypical fool, and they're roughly 400 years old. It's also generally gender ambiguous, though it's commonly referred to as male.
> 
> Also, yeah, I actually drank a bottle of Moxie to get the taste of the soda here down. It was awful. You're welcome. 
> 
> Sadly, due to real-life issues, I won't be able to upload the next chapter right away. Be sure to check back in when you can!


	5. Please Remember

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let me out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: this chapter contains mentions and described sexual assault, and could possibly upset people who have had issues with suicidal depression. Reader discretion is advised.

It was a [dream](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szjeIHkk9rU).

I _hope_ it was a dream.

 Above me was broken ceiling. Riddled with bullet holes. Some tiles hanging by a thread. One of them was right above me, urging me to get out of the way, so I tried to scoot around on the floor, which felt like cold metal…

No. No. I can’t feel anything. This is a dream. I was asleep, and then I was here. There was literally no other explanation! I…

I rubbed my hand on the floor. There were…red patches all over it, dried…blood. That felt crusty and disgusting, and the metal part was cold…lifeless.

I pinched myself.

It didn’t work.

I felt cold, dark...empty. My head was scattered. I hated it.

I…when I had that dream of that place on the bus, I couldn’t pinch myself, either, but…was this…good?

I pried myself off the floor, a bit uneasily. I felt a bit groggy, like I had just woken up. It made sense, after how I felt today, but…

This felt way too real.

I was in a hallway. Everything was lit in this terrible, hellish red haze, and at the far end of the halls was a red fog. On either wall were rows of plain steel lockers, and a few doors with broken glass. There were bullet holes in a few of the walls, 9mm, though some looked like buckshot. The floor was sheet metal, riveted, though most of the rivets were loose.

I felt myself…trembling. Hard. The blood was…it stunk, and it felt like it was invading my nostrils and penetrating my brain, and I felt something rising in my stomach, so I tried to close my throat to keep whatever it was from coming up. I clutched myself to keep myself calm. It didn’t work.

What was I supposed to do? I stumbled towards a locker, tried to open it, but it refused. The handle had been zip-tied. All of them were.

The door next to the locker had been locked, and the broken glass somehow felt sharp enough to keep me from trying to open it from the other side.

Everything about this hallway seemed…familiar. Distant, but familiar. But…it couldn’t be…

It all looked disturbingly similar – doors, lockers, blood, bullet holes, and…just a feeling that I’ve been here before.

I tried to not think about where I had seen this place before.

I pinched myself on the cheek this time, harder, but it still didn’t work.

Only one thing to do now.

I didn’t want to.

I walked toward the blood-red fog, trying to force myself to wake the _fuck_ up before something bad happened, really bad, and it just…didn’t work. I couldn’t escape. I just kept crunching glass under my shoes…

I just kept walking. Trudging. Sputtering, trying to keep myself from throwing up or whatever. I felt awful. I was…I didn’t want to be scared. This was a dream. I wasn’t in any danger. I was safe.

The school kept continuing, just one, long, ruined hallway, glass crunching under my shoes, some blood sticking to them, broken doors, closed lockers. I heard a ceiling tile fall every once in awhile. The red lights hurt my eyes. But I didn’t want to close them. My footsteps sounded throughout the hallway, and every few steps I stopped in my tracks to make sure they weren’t anyone else’s.

Then, they were.

My heart froze, my eyes went wide, my nerves tightened. Step. Step. Step. Stop. Heartbeat. Heartbeat.

Don’t look behind you. Don’t. It’s nothing. There’s nothing there, there’s something there, it’s going to hurt you, it’s what’s caused those bullet holes, it’s right behind you, there’s nothing there, it’s what ruined this place, don’t look behind you, don’t look, let it end, let it _goddamn end_ , you’re safe, it’s fine, there’s nothing, you can’t feel anything, and then I looked.

There was nothing.

There was a force against my head. A pointed, sudden, quick drilling into my skull that felt like it ruptured my scalp, bruised it, and made me tumble and stagger, mainly due to the fact that it was all so _sudden_ ¸ like a gunshot, a nailgun, something just fired out of the air and hit me…

I regained my balance, felt my head, it was sore, tender, squishy. It shouldn’t be that. This was a dream. This was all fake! It wasn’t supposed to be like this! I SHOULDN’T BE

This was wrong.

_I had to get out of here._

I picked up the pace of my walking, almost running, almost sprinting as fast as I could, racing through the straight hallway, and I soon got to a corner, didn’t think about how unusual it was, ran down it,

Hit against something.

I was face-first against a thin pane of glass, or...nothing. Invisible wall. Literal wall. I pulled myself away. It felt like smooth plastic, hard, and after I took my finger off of it, it lurched forward and made me trip.

It was moving. It was pushing all the bullet casings and dust and locker handles off and putting them in piles, and it was moving forward. It pressed the soles of my shoes and pushed them back painfully against my legs.

I saw the dust pile up. I pushed against it, and I tried screaming for help, but nothing came out and it kept moving.

I didn’t move. I felt another wall against my head. Pushing my back up. Cold hands on my shoulders, my ankes, my wrists, painful, fuck, pushed against the walls, I can’t...

It was a bathroom. The walls were rusted metal, there wasn’t anything in it, but it was the bathroom. Second story, near the science classrooms, not the part of the hall that had the labs, though. I went to the sink, which was 3/5ths of my height above the ground, so they were always a bit awkward to use. Kelly was there, probably staying after from volleyball, messing with mascara. I think. It was the eyelash makeup. I hoped she didn’t notice me. She always was the worst. The rest of the Five…they just seemed to mess with me for fun. Kelly was the only one that seemed to genuinely hate me. There was a girl that I didn’t know drying her hands.

Just wash your hands, don’t make eye contact. She won’t notice you.

“Hey, Jay.” She said.

Oh no. Oh, God, no.

“Fancy meeting you here, huh?”

I stayed silent.

“Come on, aren’t you gonna give me the time of day?”

I wiped my shaking hands on my pants and tried to get the hell out, and it was the only one, she was the only one, but she was still horrible.

I felt a hand grab my wrist and I stopped breathing, then my head against her chest.

“Julie, come on, this is a good coincidence! You’re not just going to run out on me _again_ , are you?”

The way she said again...she wouldn’t let me leave.

“I-I, it’s after school, I have to go home, please…”

“Come on! Let’s -”

“No!” I tried to push myself away from her, but her hand on my head just kept pushing me back into her shirt, smothering me with whatever rose perfume she had on. “Just, let me go, I’m so tired of - “

“Tired of me?”

“Please!” The pressure of her hand kept pushing me, I...I started crying. I didn’t want to…

“Just calm down, okay? Just shut up, it’s ruining it.”

She pushed me against the wall and felt my neck. Second time…

“You know I’m the only one who’s going to do this, right? I’m the only one who’ll actually do this to a fag like you. Just shut up an-”

My mind clicked. I went black.

I saw my fist launch right at her stuck-up goddamned face, feeling her cheek’s flesh break away and crumble beneath my bones and then finally connecting with her hard, dense skull, and I felt a thin smile break across my face as she recoiled back and to the left, some blood spraying from her mouth, only a little bit, though I wished it could’ve been more, and I felt the blood course through my fingers that were tightly clamped against my palm, and holy shit that felt _good_.

She felt her cheek for a moment, coughed and sputtered, then looked at me with every last amount of hate she had in her fake and sculpted body. I saw her other hand ball up, but before she could swing back at me I had already lunged forward, doing the first thing I thought of to subdue her, wrapped my arms around her waist and let her come crashing down, her head colliding with the stall next to her,  creating a horrific and sickeningly pleasant-sounding crunch as her skull met the plastic wall. I took my hands off, now laying on her torso, looked at her face,  already bloodied by my first strike, and she looked up at me with a mix of fear and anger. I rose my left hand and swung again and again and again at her face, harder, harder, **HARDER** until her nose was bloodied and her cheeks and jaw were bruised and I think one of her teeth got chipped, and I smiled as wide as I ever had in my entire life, finally, _finally,_ she’d know not to screw with me, that I could give it right back to her, that I could just _fuck her up_. Blood stained the skin on my knuckles, along with teeth chips, and at one point I heard a loud, wet, resounding crack that made me a little bit more happy and excited.

Suddenly, I felt a hard push against my stomach, and I ended up back on the floor, and I stood up as soon as I could and readied myself,  but instead she just laid there, looking up at me, feeling her bloodied and crumpled and utterly ruined face.

“YOU BITCH! You broke my FUCKING NOSE!”

“No! I _didn’t_! You _fell_ down the stairs like _I_ always do and broke your _own_ goddamned nose because nobody will believe that some five-tall little shy no-tits butch pale thin grandma-dressing _boy-looking brown-nosed_ ** _weak idiot creepy BITCH_** girl would _snap_ and beat someone twice her size!”

She looked at me with more hate, then she rocketed up and raced out of the bathroom, pushing me aside.

It was then that everything finally set in.

She’d tell someone. At school. An administrative person. They’d find me. They’d arrest me. For assault. I just _assaulted_ her. _I broke her nose_. I couldn’t fix this. This was bad. This was really bad! They wouldn’t believe me. She’s smart, people like her, they wouldn’t believe she keeps...

I was screwed.

I was getting suspended.

I was going to jail.

I felt something rising in my throat, and I swallowed it back down, I felt the rust-covered wall to make myself calm down, give myself some support as the blood reached my nostrils and made me gag.

I picked up my backpack and hurried out of the bathroom, breathing fast, coughing up spit, gulping it back down, and followed the small sprinkles of blood down the white hallway, down the stairs, and…

I had to get out of here.

Five days later I was suspended for a month. The principal said they didn’t have enough evidence to turn it into a criminal case, since the bathroom was sort of in a security camera blind spot, and I never really confessed, but I was too suspicious to let go scott-free. I was escorted out of the school by police.

I walked out of the principal’s office and into the lobby of the school, finding my way through the red lights and the overturned benches, only to find that the windowed front doors were locked, and only lead out to a black void.

I turned around and walked a few steps until I was in front of the wall to the cafeteria, the metal on the doors being clean and polished. I could see it clearly through the windows.

I put my hand on the handle, feeling this surge of…fear. Anticipation. It started surging through my fingers, chilling me to the bone.

It would end here.

I gulped air, choked down my stomach for what felt like the final time, and slowly pulled open the door and slid inside it.

I heard everything go dark and quiet.

The cafeteria was gone - empty, actually. Empty and dark. I felt safe, sort of. No Kelly, nothing, just…

I breathed. I still felt...awful. Weird, cold, bad.

I sat and stared at the tiles, getting my heart to stop pulsing as hard as it was. Tears stained the metal.

Some of the tiles seemed loose, and...I dug one up. I don’t know why.

Underneath was...black. It looked like thick water, maybe mud, but it was pitch black. I touched it, and the substance stuck to my finger and made a long string as I pulled it up. It felt like that weird slime kids made, but heavier and...like it was throbbing.

I tore my hand away and…

It was evil - just...just…

I gagged, I tried to inch myself away while still kneeling, then on all fours, scuttling back, trying to get away.

I saw tiles - more of them - start to shake, making me move faster, wobble up, and stand close to the door and the wall. They fell, being absorbed into that liquid, it kept bubbling and swelling, like it was alive. Small strands of it started...reaching up, grasping at the broken, snapping tiles...towards me. More tiles broke and more black hands shot out, grabbing at the dust and blood and inching towards my…

I felt the thick and heavy hand grab my ankle, freezing my body, it felt so...gross. Oh, God, oh God, “Get off! Get-”

I kicked at it, but more kept grabbing my leg, and making me feel heavy and dead, until, in one sudden motion, I was pulled under the black.

I held my breath but I didn’t need to. I could breath but...I was enveloped in the black tar, flowing thick around my body. I could feel it move around when I twitched my fingers, and it was sticking close to my face and eyes but none of it hurt.

I stared into the blackness. I couldn’t see anything. It was a liquid void, like...just like I was closing my eyes or looking into space.

In the distance I heard...my mom. I saw what she was talking about…

I was laying on the floor in her arms last May after the blanket broke and I was crying in her arms and hugging her, and my dad was...rubbing my back, and I was trying to...I felt awful. I didn’t mean…

I hugged myself while still in the tar. I felt my stomach dip.

I heard...I heard Kelly and her friends while I was in the bathroom stall...I was staring at nothing, and I looked like a mess, and Kelly and everyone was saying just to leave me because I wasn’t crying and it wasn’t fun anymore.

My mom was explaining to me about my birth...how my dad wasn’t my...biological dad, and, as if his skin color didn’t give everything away, but…

My grandfather’s funeral - me being his only granddaughter while my boy cousins were crying. I wasn’t.

I cried and I felt my tears dissolve on my cheeks. I felt…

I saw complaint after formal complaint against Kelly and everyone get ignored and ultimately thrown out and I saw her in the school’s newsletter holding a volleyball trophy. She texted me about how much she missed me while she was away. I don’t know how she got my number.

I felt like I was going to throw up. All of this...all of...why was I hearing this? Why was I reliving this? Why can’t I wake up? I don’t...I don’t want to know how bad my…

Little bits of tar kept poking at me and my eyes. I curled up.

_Are you truly welcome in this world?_

I opened my mouth to answer, but I felt the tar push against my teeth. I held my breath, which was...my face was so wet and hot, I just…

_You were a mistake, and you were treated as such. Does anyone truly acknowledge you as anything but?_

My body went limp.

_Perhaps it would be best for you to die._

_Allow us to make a preposition._

_Death without suicide._

_You will not wake up to a world that does not accept you._

My thoughts started slowing to a crawl when they said that.

_You will die in your sleep. It will be an accident._

I started sobbing harder...just…

I imagined my mom and dad...having to...my funeral, and not being able to say goodbye one last time. And Rowan...finding my body tomorrow.

But...they’d be the only people that would care. For Kelly? It’d be a miracle...but she’d lose her favorite plaything. The rest of my family is across the country or scattered around Louisiana. I don’t think anyone at my old school would...care. That Lilli girl only knew me for two days…

I couldn’t answer...I felt the tar pressing down on my skin, and I was digging my hands into my moist face, just...trying to push my eyes out…

Death without suicide. Just...disappearing.

Something started poking at my head, needles, thick spikes. My body’s senses faded, I felt cold.

My mom crying at a funeral, my dad crying even if I wasn’t his daughter, an actual funeral for me, and people actually…

I couldn’t let that happen - no, my parents...they went through so much hell. How many baby surgeries? Having to take me out of school? Having to put up with me - having to help me with my troubles...not even knowing about all the shit I went through at school...I had to…

My tears dried up. I twitched my finger, balled my fist, and I tried to move.

_What’re you doing?_

I won’t let my parents lose me without saying goodbye.

I grit my teeth, I trust upwards with my hands, tearing through the ink - it felt like that weird starch glue, and I gripped and tore the liquid, grasping it and pulling it down in thick vines, pushing upwards with my feet - swimming, almost. More like fighting.

The voice kept yelling at me but I kept fighting up. This fucking black...kill it.

**Kill it.**

Every time I tore it and swam upwards, the voice screamed. It was dying, and I was destroying it. I felt good - every time I grabbed it, I felt part of my mind come back - my anger, my courage, whatever little love for myself I had. Soon my hand felt air instead of ink - and someone else grabbed it. A warm hand. I felt it pull me up, and I started digging my feet into the ink as I walked up and out into the room.

_If we shadows have offended,_

_Think but this, and all is mended,_

_That you have but slumber'd here_

_While these visions did appear._

_And this weak and idle theme,_

_No more yielding but a dream,_

_Gentles, do not reprehend:_

_If you pardon, we will mend:_

_And, as I am an honest Puck,_

_If we have unearned luck_

_Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,_

_We will make amends ere long;_

_Else the Puck a liar call;_

_So, good night unto you all._

_Give me your hands, if we be friends,_

_And Robin shall restore amends._

It rang inside my head for a second, then…

I was alone, in my old room during a warm and orange day. I heard the house have it’s usual activity - calm T.V., gas oven, telephone, scampering of the mice in their cage in the living room.

I felt the rug I was sitting on and looked up at the posters on the wall - a promotional one from a game I pre-ordered, the soldier with his .50 rifle looking over the forest, one of the Smoky Mountains. The room was lit by the sunset from the window. I heard my voice from the kitchen talking about trying out for the skeet shooting team. I sounded really...happy. What happened to that?

I felt my breathing slow down to a more manageable level. I sat up against the wall and looked at the mice through my door, and I breathed in and out one last time before falling asleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact, this chapter has been ready to go for...a while. Sadly, my artists (@whisperingrockers on tumblr, also known as @richynepp) has been occupied with real life shenanigans and is taking some much-needed time off. I tried to clean up this chapter and post it just to make sure I don't fall behind.
> 
> Also, I will point out the elephant in the room, and...honestly, I'm not sure why I included the scene in the bathroom. It's been part of Julie's character since the beginning, and it was a major turning point in her life, but I kept turning it over in my mind and tried to decide if I should include it. It's against what the Persona series usually shows re: sex and sexual assault (well, maybe - I haven't played Persona 5 yet, and since that's, apparently, a lot darker than the rest of the series, I'll have to see). However, honestly, that sort of stuff isn't that unknown around the Archive. I'm not sure. Either way, I will promise that stuff like that won't pop up again (this being something I'm going to keep regardless - I have no further plans to show that kind of content).  
> Either way, I really don't like how it came out - I might remove it depending on if I portrayed it horribly or just bad in general, but it's still going to be canon. But now people won't have to read it. I am a survivor of sexual assault (for different reasons and nothing really comparable to what Julie went through), but I still think it's not as good as it could be.  
> (oh, also, something i will point out is that this isn't supposed to be "'wow if you were sexually assaulted by a person of the same sex that makes you gay" biotruths shit - i mentioned early in comments and private correspondence that julie is a lesbian, and her experiences in high school did not impact or shape it in any way.)
> 
> In any case, I hope you enjoy. I think the next 'wait-for-art' haitus' will be after the next chapter. Hope everyone's ready to be patient!


	6. Alone, Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The role I wasn't meant to play.

I stared at the ceiling fan for I don’t know how long.

The sky was still bright and yellow, orange - like a egg yolk, almost. No lights on in the room. I thought  I turned them off when I went to bed?

I felt like I ate cement, or milkshakes, or cuddled with a big dog and set my allergies off. Just...thick, and heavy, and gross. My clothes were sticky with my own sweat...and my bedsheets...ugh, my bra…

I rolled to one side, felt gross, groaned and choked on my own grossness, sat on my bed, and stared at the walls. How long has it been since I had a nightmare like that before? My head was spinning. I kept wiping away layer after layer of sweat, and I still felt disgusting, like I was still...still in that pit.

My phone was blinking. I looked at it for a bit, and then I remembered that I had to pick it up for it to stop blinking.

Four texts from Mom, one from a number, one from Rowan, one missed call.

Seriously? Something must’ve gone wrong - a bird hit the tower or something, or a coastal storm or...yeah. It’s 16:00...I came home at 14:00...I’ve only been asleep for two hours…

I scrolled down the bar at the top and looked at the date.

#### Wednesday, August  **1** **st**

Yesterday was Tuesday.

I was…

The phone dropped from my hands and bounced on the hardwood. Time stood still. I remembered...everything about last night...the bathroom, the walls, the...pit, the ink...my death. How I crawled out…

The hard wood got wet with my tears.

Why did I...sleep...that’s not right. Oh, God. Oh,  _ God _

I’m...I’m out now, right? I’m fine now. I’m okay. I’m safe. But, I...something’s wrong with me…

That black...that ink...was it…

Oh, God, I’m going to die, I’m...oh, God! I feel it...that black…

Every time I moved or coughed or breathed I felt the black sticking to my throat and clogging my lungs.  I’m dying, that was it, I’m going to...

I slept for a day, and I...I could still feel the blood and rust and black on my fingers, the stickiness, the weird way it coated my body and grabbed me and…

I took a breath and…

Just...calm down. Calm the hell down. I’m...you’re not going to die...you’re going...

I need a shower.

I rubbed my eyes a bit more, got up, went to the bathroom, turned on the hot water, got rid of my gross-smelling old clothes, and...stood in the bath. For a while. The water from the showerhead felt good. Great, almost. Cleansing. I stared at the greenish porcelain, the clean, fake silver faucets…

I shampooed and soaped and did everything, then dried off and sat on the toilet seat for...a while.

I tried not to think about last night, but I thought about it a lot. I didn’t want to remember any of that...any of Kelly…

I won’t ever see her again. She’s graduating this year...and so should I...but I’d go the next...rest of my life without seeing her.

I still remembered every last thing she did to me, that wasn’t going away. I had to live with that. I had to live with being lead out of the school by the police because of the outburst in the principal’s office. I saw phone camera footage and captioned Quicklis of me, with messy hair and a red, tear-stained face, being pushed out in handcuffs. Deleting my social media pages - not that I had anything on them before, but after that, seeing all the notifications of people commentating and sharing and pointing and laughing through the safety of their phones and computers…

I dried off with a towel, looked around for hair stuff, found a comb, got all the kinks out of my hair, got dressed in new clothes, and sat on the bed again.

With all the stuff that was going on, I honestly miss that.

These dreams...of the Midnight Room...Velvet Room? Whatever. Tar-oh cards. Then the school. The fuc...the damn school. I can’t think about it anymore. I can’t dwell on it. I still felt the tar on my skin. I still felt Kelly holding me. I still smelled bad rose perfume. I’d take people calling me a psycho whore or a faggot or a future serial killer over...anything now. I’m better at being a victim than being anything else...that’s all I’ve ever been.

On cue, my phone lit up again - just a random news story. Stuff about gas. I flicked it away and looked at the messages.

My mom was just…

**Hey Honey! Rowan said you’re not feeling well. Call me when you can?**

**Are you awake yet?**

**Still have summer in you? Call me!!**

Then a sleepy-face emoticon. This missed call was from her.

Mental note: call mom.

Rowan just said  **Ok** after I told him about my nap.

The number was  **hey u ok….not at school**

Who sent that? That’s...Lilli, maybe? Maybe.

I sat on the floor and rolled up the bottom of the shirt I threw on. I didn’t know what to do...really...at all. I felt defeated, even if I won. What was that black stuff supposed to be? It felt sticky, like glue slime...something like that.

Someone was knocking. Knocking?

“Uh…”

Whoever it was, they took it as invitation to come in. Rowan. Who else?

“Good morning, eh, afternoon…” he wasn’t dressed like he went to work today, but was still professional. I looked like I had rolled out of a washing machine. “Is everything okay?”

My room looked like crap. I was still bleary. 

“You just woke up, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“You, uh, you did sleep for...well, not the whole night, I guess. You got up and walked around, right? Or just...stretched your legs. Uh…”

“Yeah, yeah...I’m fine.” I lied.

“Are you hungry for anything?”

“No.”

“O-Okay. I’m just checking in on you.”

I don’t think he planned this talk through. He looked like he was on the verge of saying ‘I love you’ out of habit. Did he ever have kids? I don’t think so.

“Thanks.”

He awkwardly waved, and slowly shut the door. I sat down as my phone buzzed again - just a dumb notification about an RTS game I had, not anything important. Sadly.

Only three people texted me. I still didn’t like that. Two were people who had to text me. One barely seemed concerned. One was probably just going to use me up and throw me away. 

I texted her first.

**I’m fine I just slept**

I placed my phone down before it buzzed again.

**4 how long……**

**I don’t know but it was a long time**

**ok???**

I didn’t know how to respond. She didn’t either. I kept seeing the bubbles pop up and go back down.

**This is Lily right**

**lilli yeah.** **  
****> :[ dont 4get about me!!!!**

**Sorry**

**ru sick**

**I hope so**

She went AWOL. I stared at the empty T.V. screen while pulling over my mom’s contact image, then texting  **I just woke up**

**Good!! How are you feeling? Rowan thinks you’re sick…**

**I’m ok**

**That’s good!** **  
****I hope you’re doing fine. I miss you <3**

My finger hovered over the keyboard for more than a moment. I don’t know why.

**I do too**

The sun and the sky turned that egg-yolk orange again. 

I was hungry, but I didn’t want Rowan to see me again. I felt bad about a lot of stuff.

Seagulls started cawing outside. I thought it was a weird squirrel until I realized where I was. A flock of them were dotting the sky in black.

My window didn’t have a screen. I put my fingers through the windowsill, feeling the air tickle my fingertips. There was a breeze.

I didn’t have anything under the window...the sunroom’s roof was a bit to the right, and I couldn’t reach it with my short arms. 

I opened up the window all the way, opened my phone, and took a picture of the skyline...the small buildings, the ground that sloped a little bit down...then the long stretch of blue with white wisps that went on forever.

Another buzz, one that almost shook my phone out of my hands. Lilli. 

**can i call u**

A...phone call?

I...I don’t think I’ve ever called someone except out of necessity...It’s only really been me and my mom or my dad calling back and forth when one would be late, or early, or when plans arose…I was never a girl that would spend hours on the phone with my girlfriends  Or a girlfriend. Or anyone.

I hesitated sending anything back, and I accidentally gave her enough time to call me. My phone buzzed in my hand to the tune of Dixie, and Lilli’s number and a silhouette of a girl popped up. I held my thumb over the ‘answer call’ button before swallowing my spit and pressing it.

“Hey.”

_ oh god she’s actually talking to me she actually someone is  _ **_actually_ **

“Julie? Uh, crap, is this a wrong number?”

“N-no!”

A pause. “Is anyone…”

“Lilli?”

“Julie? Hey, you sound like you lost your voice or something.”

I ran my fingers over my throat. It felt croaky.

“I’m fine.”

“Okay...I, uh, Raul just wants me to check on ya…”

“Why?”

“I don’t fuckin’ know.”

Oh, thank God. I was worried that she got attached to me.

“I’m okay,” I lied.

“Uh-huh.”

I looked out at the sea of rooftops. What did that guy say yesterday? Almost nothing was higher than three stories. I saw a church steeple and a few large municipal buildings, that was it.

“Ey, you gonna be at school tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“Do you wanna hang out with me ‘n Raul after that?”

My heart stopped.

So soon? Isn’t there a cooldown period for that sort of stuff? You can’t ask people out twice in a row! That’s just…

“Hello?”

“I-I’d like that...I’d really...yeah.”

I felt some kind of anxiety bubbling in my stomach after she said that, though...I didn’t know her. At all. She was...well, she didn’t sound really cordial, but...maybe even...could I trust her? Could I trust that other kid? My hand started rubbing my wrist, accidentally giving myself an Indian burn, and I just stared down at my own feet.

“You...wanna say something?”

“Wh...why are you so nice...why did you just...why do you want to be  _ my _ friend? Why am I good for you?”

“Huh? What?”

That wasn’t the best way to put it...nice going.

“It-it’s weird for me, it’s just really, I’ve never had someone be so…”

She didn’t say anything. I heard shuffling through the phone. Probably rolling her eyes or moving to hang up.

“Honestly, it’s just ‘cuz you’re new. Not that it’s bad. I just need more new people in my life. I’ve lived on this island for three years and it’s finally fucking getting to me...no new people, at all,” I heard a box open. “Just a bunch of idiots and bitches. I don’t need those anymore.”

Oh.

“If it bothers you, like, yeah, I can just let you do whatever and...fuck, believe me, you don’t need me around.”

My wrist burn started hurting more. I can’t...was she being manipulative? I don’t...this is the first…

“No, it’s okay, I...I’d like a friend here…” A lump grew in my throat.

We both stayed silent.

“Tomorrow after school?”

“Yeah.”

“O-okay...I’ll see you...I’ll see you then.”

“Sounds good. Seeya.”

I nodded slowly. “Bye, I…” I was about to say ‘I love you’ out of sheer reflex, but I caught myself before it slipped out, and before anything more embarrassing could happen, I hung up immediately.

I’m an idiot.

It was 18:00 now. I still felt tired, and confused, and sore, but mostly tired. I thought about calling my mom, but I...I sounded awful. She’d probably start worrying about it. Same with my dad. I sat back on the bed, and noticed my comforter was still unnaturally damp. I could ask Rowan to clean it...but that would be confrontation.

I threw it on the floor, curled up near a pillow, and closed my eyes, and I opened them again almost instantly. 

The bed changed from soft cotton to smooth velvet. Guns cocked, and a spotlight shone directly into my eyes. I was no longer in my pajamas - I was in a smock. Was it like...no…

I was here before.

Oh, God, no. No, no, no.

“Do not be afraid, young lady; in your world, you are but gently resting, and you will awake refreshed.”

I heard that voice before. I looked at the room around me, and saw absolutely everything was in the same way. No floor. No back wall. Curtains around us. Bookshelves. Imp man and buff boy.

I twisted my body around, still aching, and pulled myself upright. Igor and Boris were staring at me expectantly.

“If I may ask, my dear, are you feeling well?”

I tugged at the smock. It didn’t have any loose parts on it...I felt comfortable, but…

“Ah, you have found why I called you here...I feel it is right to continue your treatment. Consider yourself our patient - one who suffers from a sickness that can be cured with the proper care.”

I rolled the word ‘sickness’ around in my mouth.

“We have upmost faith in your recovery, but we shall require cooperation from you as well. You have already done a great deal as of late...but the first examination was quite, how you say, incomplete.”

I looked down at the not-floor. Great. I hated this.

“You have had a nightmare recently, haven’t you?”

I slowly nodded. I was having one right now.

“Ah, and what did you see in your dream?”

I glared at the couch, and the darkness, and the spotlights. Igor remained unmoving, smiling.

“I saw me fighting, and I fell into a giant...void of ink, or...something...I...don’t know...I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You have had a dream, pass the wit of man to say what dream it was. It was much more than your mind wandering, or a night terror. Your demons gained a physical form, and you have slaughtered them gallantly. But there is a ingredient still missing before you can awaken from your waking nightmare.”

My eyes jolted up. What the hell was he talking about?

“Ah, if I may be so bold…” Igor actually moved - putting his hand under his chin, and started to elocute with his open hand. “You were forced into a role you were not meant to play, were you not? Now your true self lies asleep, and the mask that you were made to wear is the one you proudly display...you are Perriot, while Columbina lies dormant”

I glared at him again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Igor nodded. “In the coming days, you will understand. However, your appointment is almost at an end, and you will soon be returned to the real world. When you leave, you will awaken next morning with a new sense of vigor...be sure to capitalize on it. Now, without further ado...Boris?”

Boris’ eyes snapped open just as a rope fell from the top of the curtains. With a single pull, the lights turned off with a click, and I went with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AUGH CHRIST  
> Man, I hate getting in writing slumps. It took me goddamn forever to actually finish writing the last three pages. But I think actually having this stuff uploaded will give me the push I need to keep writing.  
> Part of the reason I got in a slump was because I just now got Persona 5. It's...much, much, much better than I ever thought, and I'm going to use some of the stuff it laid out as groundwork going forward (I had no idea about Awakening scenes, and I'm having a lot of fun writing them out for the party members). I think I'm starting to get the hand of writing Igor, too. His new VA was a huge surprise, and the fact that he actually has some sort of personality helps a lot.


	7. Don't Try To Fight It Anymore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh, God.

####  [Thursday, August 2nd](https://youtu.be/SRQg3WGvopY)

“You drive  _ this? _ ”

I was standing in front of Raul’s dented, slightly rusted car, one that looked like it drove directly out of a 2000’s-era dump full of 1980’s automobiles. It was after school, and me, Lilli, and Raul were loitering around the pre-wreck of an car.

“Yeah, Raul, you drive this?” Lilli scoffed, her foot on the front bumper, making it bob up and down. It seriously looked like it was about to come clean off.

“Well, yeah, you should kn-how the hell do you think I got here?”

“I-I mean…” I started, trying to pat the hood and make him feel better, but when I felt the metal, the slight patches of rust made me remember that hours-long nightmare I had, the memories amplifying the rough sensation, and I quickly brought back my arm. “As long as it doesn’t break down in, like, the middle of the road, it’s…”

“Oh, it’s only done that once,” Raul pressed the button on his keys, and both the car’s headlights and my eyes flashed bright.  He looked at me, then sighed. “Don’t worry, I’m kidding!”

“No, he’s not.” Lilli snickered, then put her hand on the hood of the car.

“Hey, I told you not to do-!”

Lilli did it anyway, vaulting over the hood of the car, swung open the car door, and slided into the passenger seat.

Raul sighed.  “Guess you got the back.”

I nodded, then carefully walked over to the back seat door, turned the handle, half-expecting it to snap off in my hand, then sat in the middle of the seat. The leather was surprisingly clean, and I wasn’t really afraid about a spring coming up and impaling my thigh. Well, not that much. 

Raul climbed in, adjusted his mirror, and pulled out of the parking spot, the engine sounding much louder than it should on a car. He dug a tape (!) out of the center console and plugged it into the radio, filling the inside of the car with the sounds of light pop. I saw the modern buildings of the area around the school fade into smaller, less-developed houses, parks, a few small shacks that sold food or souveniers...soon, it all blended into pastel siding and bright green trees. I looked down at my phone for a second, glaring at the day-late reminder to call my mom, and glanced back up and out of the window. 

To the right was a wooden fence, followed by a long, tan, shiny beach, dotted with umbrellas and  followed by a blue, sparkling, frothing ocean, gently lapping at the sand and the rocks.

The ocean.

“That’s-!” I gasped, trying to lean over to the window, not getting very far, unbuckling myself in a calm fury, scrambling over the seat, and bringing down the window. I saw the blue water sparkle in the afternoon sun, little whips of water flowing up and over onto the white and tan sand. The ocean air invaded the space inside car, a tranquil annexation that blasted my face with water and salt scents. 

“That’s Massachusetts Bay,” Raul said over the sound of engine and asphalt rolling. “Pretty, isn’t it?”

I had no idea what to say.

Eventually, we drove out of the small line of  It was like the size of an oil derrick, with a wood bridge connecting it to the island. It was covered in buildings, metal amusement park rides, and a Ferris wheel (!), all glimmering in the sun. “What is that?”

“Chelsea Ocean Amusements. You’ve…never seen it before?” Raul asked, one hand on the steering wheel, the other on the center console, his head turned back to me.

“I-I, uh…” I remembered that I wasn’t even wearing a seatbelt, and in front of us was a winding beach road. I sat back in the middle, and pulled my belt back over my chest. “I think my mom told me about it.”

“Pretty much the only thing poor people can do around here.” Lilli sigh-grunted, leaning back in her chair.

“Hey, maybe we can go sometime?” Raul looked at the pier as it exited the corners of our eyes. “Max likes going there. When they get back we can go.”

Lilli scoffed. “Max  _ likes _ something?”

“Who’s Max?” I asked, trying to loosen the somehow-already-locked seatbelt from my breast.

“He’s a friend of ours,” Raul smiled, looking back at me. “Their family is on vacation right now, but he should be back, uh…actually, when’s the end of summer school?” he asked, turning to Lilli.

Lilli felt her forehead. “August 8th. I think. Around that week.”

I tapped my thigh a little bit, working out the tune to ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’, ignoring the soft rock Raul was playing. I was a bit excited, and a bit scared. I wasn’t afraid of...actually, what was I afraid of? I liked these guys. They liked me. They actually like me! I mean, after last night…

I looked forward at the road winding ahead of us. We were going back into building territory.

The path to the amusement park connected to the beach, wooden pathways standing on tall wooden poles, and widened to the point that it looked like it was an actual road. Small, multicolored yet plain buildings surrounded it on both sides. I couldn’t see much, as the buildings  but it looked like a…

“That’s the Waxahatche Historical Boardwalk,” Raul explained. “It’s really cool, honestly. Nice place to hang out. Really photogenic.”

Lilli didn’t say anything.

We passed by a dock building, and I noticed the buildings on the side of the coast were more...chic. Bright purple with black awnings, stylized wine bottles and glasses drawn on chalk standees, what looked like a miniaturized department store -  I think I recognized the name, some kind of high-end place that was always in movies. It felt like we were getting into the richer parts of town.

“We gonna park?” Lilli asked, elbowing Raul.

“Nah, main street.”

“Fine.”

I sat quietly in the back seat.

The posh area of the town started to smooth down into a bunch of brick, revolutionary-era buildings, housing shops and restaurants with what looked like apartments on the top, passing by a tall wooden church, then a smooth, rounded municipality building, then the brick road of Main Street that I remembered clearly from my rides. Raul found a parking lot, and after a lot of churning and groaning on the car’s part, and a single, loud ‘clunk’ when he turned on the brakes, we stopped and got out.

“This is the Main Street of Lydon, home of the historical society, the county courthouse, an-”

“For fuck’s sake, nobody cares.”

Raul winced at Lilli. “Look, I care, alright? And I just though she would, too.”

“Pff, sure,” Lilli elbowed me. “The only reason he wanted to come here is ‘cuz he’s on the history place. Bunch of little old ladies and... _ him _ .”

“Man, shut up,” Raul beckoned the two of us over to the cobblestone sidewalk. “You know about the forest, right?”

“The, u-uh, the green place on the map, right?”

“Yeah, that’s the H. Harris Nature Preserve. I go there all the time.”

Lilli had already pulled open her phone. A police car rolled down the street, bumping a little bit. She ducked down, and Raul watched it go down.

“Huh.”

“What’s up?”

He turned to me, then shook his head, dismissing himself. “Nothing, it’s fine.”

We walked down the street. “That’s the Revolutionary War museum. Lydon had a pretty big impact on it, y’know!”

“Really?”

He nodded, and I glanced at the museum itself. It was pretty small, faded wood, with what looked like half of a rowboat embedded into the roof. “The island used to be uninhabited, but a bunch of American privateers used it as a headquarters to raid English boats. I think the estimate is that we...hm, I think it was, like, $250,000 worth of damage, in today’s damage.”

Lilli couldn’t care less.

“That’s the historical society building, the library, and the old East Church.” I glanced over at the cathedral he pointed out, but it didn’t seem to be in service. Maybe for weddings?

“We goin’ to the forest yet?”

The two of us looked back at Lilli, before Raul conceded. “Yeah, the entrance is down Main Street.”

We kept walking, though Raul’s energy looked like it was sapped, and he stopped talking. He pulled something out of his bag - a camera, apparently - and started fiddling with it. Lilli kept texting someone.

I saw the green clusters of trees in the distance, surrounded by a concrete fence that was twice my size. The trees themselves barely poked up above the stone.

Another cop came came down. 

Lilli perked up. “Hey, what the hell?”

“What?”

“Hey, Raul, is that road closed?”

“Why are you asking me?”

“You got glasses, Can’t you see better?”

He grumbled. “I wear glasses so I can see just as  _ good _ as you two…” Despite his insistence, he put his hand above his brow, then, when it didn’t seem to work, he pulled his camera to his eyes. “Yeah? Yeah, they have cones blocking that intersection…”

“Is that weird?”

Raul looked down at me. “I mean, yeah. They usually don’t block roads on Main Street…”

Lilli rushed forward, with this weird smile on her face. Raul sighed, said ‘wait up’ and followed her.

I had no choice. Without a word, I ran ahead, trying to keep up with the two people who might as well be my friends, trying to wedge my way between people on the sidewalk and the crowd that was rapidly forming. I could see a cluster of cop cars in a rotunda, which apparently was the entrance to the forest, some standing on the railing of a weird log cabin that I guessed was some sort of lodge. They were putting yellow tape over the gate.

Another car was behind us, but the moment we took off it lurched forward. A window rolled down, and I heard a man yell at us...me.

Raul grabbed Lilli’s arm, and tried to keep her in place. She only stopped struggling when the cop car made a whooping noise.

Inside the car was a clean-cut, square-jawed man with thin black hair, cut with a high widow’s peak. He made a point of showing his blue uniform and badge to us.

“What do you kids think you’re doing?”

I stayed shut. I had never...well, I had talked to a policeman once. I didn’t like it. I had only been here four days and I was already being interrogated! Lilli and Raul kept budging together, looking like teen delinquents. I guess they were. I was now blindly following delinquents. I hate this.

“We just wanted to-”

“Wait, you,” The cop cut off Raul, thumbing Lilli. She yanked her arm free of Raul’s grip, her eyes squinting at the policeman’s accusation. “Nai-ming, right?”

She made a weird, obviously forced smile, but didn’t answer.

“Uh-huh. Look, I know seeing a bunch of police cars and caution tape is exciting to kids like you, but you wanna stay away,” he pointed at Lilli again. “The last thing we need is rumors or false accusations, but she’d probably ‘cause ‘em. I know a few people on the force that’d put her in a wagon if she came to a baby shower.”

Lilli looked down at the ground, then the tires of the car. 

“I’m going to be honest with you kids, this ain’t something either of you wanna get involved with. It isn’t a pretty one. You got that?”

“Can I ask -”

The cop shook his head at Raul. “Absolutely not. The nature preserve’s gonna be shut down for a few days. That’s all you wanna know.”

I nodded quickly, trying to get the situation over as quick as possible, swallowing the air inside my mouth. “Yes sir.”

“Alright, you kids head off...sorry if I scared you.” The cop nodded to himself, almost as an afterthought, rolled up the window, and drove through the street, stopping before the cones. The crows was thicker now. Pretty much everyone on the street when we got here was gravitating towards the end, near the intersection.

“Fuckin’ hate that guy…” Lilli swore under her breath. “Fucking retard cops.”

“Well, that sucks.”

I nodded. Raul sighed, pulled out his phone, and looked at the two of us. “Eh, we still have time before my bro gets home. What do you wanna see?”

Lilli flexed her fingers back and forth. “I don’t care.”

“I hope it’s going to be okay…” I mumbled, looking down again at the crowd and the distant forest.

Lilli grumbled something again, then started to walk back down the street, hand in her pockets. She quickly began outpacing us.

“She’ll be fine, she just gets, uh, moody. Well, she’s like this most of the time. Sometimes more so, but…” Raul half-smiled at me. I guess I looked a bit concerned, but just to be sure I touched my cheek and felt heat. I still had butterflies in my stomach from the cop, but part of me was fine. Part of me was fine to the point of not being a part of me anymore. I guess I was just...I had a lot of weird emotions right now. I was with other people my age for...probably the first time ever, and I was having a good time, even if I was...ugh. I hate mood swings.

“Hey, you okay?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Just...feeling weird.”

“Oh, hey, do I have your number?” He dug his own phone out of his camera bag, then handed it to me. “Here, could you put it in?”

I gently took the phone from him. It was a weirdly big one, black brushed metal with a red outline. The contacts app was already open.

It was such a simple thing, right? I just put in my number and my name. But he was...this was the first time I did anything like this, and he was staring at me so...kindly. Like he was waiting for anything. Like I could take all the time and the world and he’d still be fine. But I couldn’t do that! I had to do this quick. It was a simple operation. I had to be a human being for once and he couldn't know otherwise. 

I started sweating, and I ended up typing my name with a trembling finger. I...forgot my surname. I forgot ‘Bousher’. I just put in “Julie :(“ and my number and by the time I had smiled and accidentally bared my teeth at him and handed him his phone back screen-down I realized I put the smiley face upside down because I’m such a goddamn moron. 

He glanced at it, his face unchanging. “You still having trouble getting used to this place?”

More than he know. “N-nah, I’m...I’m still just a bit worried about the thing back there…”

“Oh, yeah...I think it was just a kid breaking his leg. Happened once school first let out.”

“It sounded serious…”

I looked back. The crowd was starting to disperse a little bit.

“Well, hey, we can help you find stuff to get your mind off things. I think Max is coming back in a week or two. We can go to that amusement park then. How about it?”

“Uh, sure…” I mumbled, glancing around. I think we passed where Raul parked his car, and the street had started to get less historic looking. At one point, the cobblestone had faded into clean, smooth concrete, and the buildings looked more contemperary. We passed by a bar with an open entrance and a patio that bled into the sidewalk, full of office workers and tourists having lunch. There was a clothing store that had weirdly lifelike mannequins, with eyes that followed me when we walked by. We rounded a corner, passing by a cafe with half of a giant coffee cup as it’s sign, and found Lilli sitting on a bench under a tree.

I didn’t say anything.

She didn’t, either, she just got up, stretched, and tapped Raul on the shoulder.

“Uh, hey. You cool off?”

“Shut up, look.”

Raul whipped his head around, to where Lilli was pointing.

“You didn’t get my text?”

“N-no, I kinda have you on mute right now.”

“Dumbass.”

I stared at the object of their fascination. Across the street was a...one of those old-timey theaters, built in a dark purple, almost black brick with gold linings and columns that seemed to shimmer in the midday sun. It had a wide, thick metal awning, with the edges lined with bright purple neon bars, and a pitch black sign, without any kind of lettering or signage. No name, no shows, nothing. The only other decorations on it were a pair of golden gargoyles on either side of the doors - ones with grotesque dog heads brimming with jagged teeth - and a ticket booth with nobody in it.

[The theater](https://youtu.be/LF3UiXj8ZAk?t=33) looked absolutely spotless and clean, and twice as opulent as any building around it.

Then Raul said something that made my spine completely freeze.

“That...wasn’t here…”

“That’s what I’m saying! When did they add it in?”

Raul looked at the ground, the cafe behind us, then at the theater. “I was here yesterday, and that outdoor plaza was there, wasn’t it? The...it…”

Lilli’s eyes narrowed. People began passing under it, nobody even...looking at it. Nobody acknowledged it except us. 

The theater sat unmoving, unchallenged.

I stepped off the curb, glancing at a sparkling blue speck on the theater’s ticket stand. Something about it was making it glow and flicker in the sunlight. 

Raul and Lilli kept talking about the building. The light turned red, and the coupes and shiny sedans that were flowing down the road had stopped and slowed down.

I pressed my hand on the roof of a bright yellow hatchback, the metal burning in the summer sun,  walking onto the other side of the street, not breathing, not speaking, not thinking. I heard screams and yelling, cursing, griping. Raul and Lilli were calling me back. I stepped through the road divider, still staring at the blue speck, now showing itself to be a blue butterfly, with bright, incandescent wings that slowly flapped and twitched in the slight breeze.

I wasn’t bothered by my thinking, my lack of thinking, until I stepped up on the concrete sidewalk, under the metal awning, standing next to the empty ticket stand, and saw the butterfly twitch it’s leg up, almost...beckoning. Pointing.

I held my finger towards it.

The butterfly became sparkling dust, flying away in the breeze. It dissapeared entirely.

“Julie! Hey!” Raul yelled. I blinked, and the two of them were right next to me, the cars were moving, and the air had started blowing again. Raul put his hand on my shoulder and exhaled. 

“Dude, we just crossed the street.”

“Ugh, sorry I don’t have your stamina,” He straightened himself out. “What were you thinking? I just talked her into not going to investigate, and the next moment you’re gone!”

“Huh?” I snapped back into reality, staring at the doors to the theater, with their glass windows painted black, then at the gargoyles that seemed to growl at me.

I thought for a second.

I didn’t remember how I got here.

“I-I don’t...I just…”

“Look, the police are just down the street, we don’t want to give them any more trouble.”

“Why are you taking the police’s side?”

Raul rubbed his temple. “Can we just go?”

“Hell no, man. This is cool.” Lilli made her way to the doors, and I just kept trying to retrace the minute I lost.

“Lilli! We’re not going to go poking around in-”

“Fine, you stay out here.”

“What if there’s-”

“I don’t give a shit!” She snapped back. “Come on, don’t you wanna do something cool for once?”

“Poking around in weird black buildings? That’s not fun.”

“This is the only fun thing that’s happened here in, like-”

“How is this fun?”

“It’s fun for me! Come on, let’s go! Stop being such a pussy!”

Raul stepped forward. Their voices were getting...rough. Loud. It broke my concentration, and made my heart beat loud and quick. 

“I’m not a pussy! I just don’t want to get made into some...some god damned spectacle!”

Something happened.

The lights in the awning above us - the dozens of triangle light bulbs - flicked on at once, making a sound of a switch being thrown. Something happened inside, too, more sounds - sounds of lights turning on, electrical switches connecting, and through the bright glass I could see bright light illuminating a gilded, spotless interior lobby, untouched, clean, and different enough to keep me from remembering that the same area was pitch black before.

The three of us were bathed in light, and Raul and Lilli could notice it, too. I looked around, and...

Everything outside that wasn’t underneath the light was pitch black. I couldn’t see the street, the cafe, the cars...there was absolutely nothing. It was like it didn’t exist.

We were alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tryin' something new. Lemme know if people like it. Either way, I think it'll be more convenient.  
> Also, I realized I kind of stopped at a weird cliffhanger. Believe me, I have the rest of this chapter written out, but I want to avoid adding it until next time, just because this chapter was already saturated with information.


	8. The Other Side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> oh god oh god help me

The air grew cold and heavy in an instant. I felt the breeze stop, and the hard light from the top of the awning, even though it had just turned on seconds ago, was heating the skin underneath my thick sweatshirt. The three of us cast pitch-black shadows, dark as the void around the theater.

I stayed frozen.

“W-was there supposed to be a…” Lilli started, running her fingers against each other. “I, he, uh...thought the big storms were tomorrow, right?”

Raul fidgeted with his bag. I breathed in and out, then looked at the side of the ticket stall where the butterfly had...just died. The entire lit space was the size of an SUV, but it felt more and more constraining by the second.

The inside was warmly lit, contrasting against the thick dark around us.

“Julie, hey, do you...does anyone else have service?”

I ignored him. I didn’t want to even look.

“That’s...hey, stop fucking-!” Lilli moved in and pushed Raul out of the way. “Does this door...c’mon, open up!” She started pounding against the glass, making it bounce up and down inside the metal frame.

“Hey, calm down! And yeah, there _was_ a storm warning, but-”

“Open! UP!”

The four sets of doors swung open with a horrific force, almost slamming Lilli in the face, and making Raul dodge Lilli’s dodge. I stayed behind the safety of the ticket booth, the darkness nipping at my sweater and jeans like darkness shouldn’t, but before I could think about that, I was pulled by my hand into the building itself, my head banging against the metal frame, ringing inside my head that made everything seem more dreamlike than it already was.

“Shit, you alright?” Raul felt the side of my head as I stood dazed. “Dammit, Lilli, what’s going on?”

“You tell me! This some sorta fuckin’ new thing, new theater or something?”

“What? No! I don’t know anything about this!”  
  
I rubbed where I was struck - it slowly grew numb. My head felt numb. I felt...nothing. I didn’t feel threatened or scared or like I was going to cry or throw up, just that...I was okay with everything, and I knew this was probably the last day I had to live before something went wrong.

The lobby of the building was nice and opulent, to the point where it couldn't possibly exist. The walls were black marble, but lit bright enough by golden chandeliers that it looked more like they were white or grey. The ceiling itself was arched and seemingly made in sections, separated by hard gold arches, the actual ceiling tiles had designs carved in them that made my head hurt even more as I tried to parse what they were.  It was deep and narrow, four circles of bright purple couches with wooden and silver inlays around dark wooden tables, lined with gold and studded with purple gems, over a grey carpet with more designs made in the felt, in the center being a giant theater mask that stretched from wall to wall. One half of the mask was white, smiling, wide eyes. The other was wrinkled, angry, almost demonic. On the far side of the room was a gold-lined counter with nothing on it but a silver and white cash register. Behind the counter was…

I stepped forward into the room.  
  
It was a painting of sheer, deep blackness. Nothing. It was completely dark, but...the more I looked into it, the more the brushstrokes and the reflections seemed to...move. Swirl. It was just my imagination. It had to be…

Everything caught up to me.

This shouldn’t be real.

A theater in town that nobody heard of, completely new, completely ornate, the lights turning off - the _sky turning off_ . How did nobody notice this? I didn’t see pictures of this. This should be a landmark. The designs...the memories of them still hurt my head. The painting - _this painting._ I had to force myself to look away.

This _shouldn’t be happening._

“Wow, this is, uh...huh.” Raul mused, walking towards me.

I coughed, then sucked my breath back in. “Yeah...uh, yeah…”

“What do you think this is?”

I looked at him, silent.

“Come on, there has to be, like...something. A name or something.” Lilli looked over and underneath the counter - I guess her height would help - then groaned. “Nothing!”

“Can’t check either, phones are out...seriously, this doesn’t...was it even this big outside?” Raul paced around, looking up and chewing his lip. He pulled off the top of his camera bag and pulled out an expensive-looking black camera. “This is still on, though.” he turned on the pop-up thing on the front and began taking pictures of everything.

“Man, who’s going to believe this?”

Raul took his eye off the viewport. “Uh, keepsakes, I guess.”

“Sure.”

I started looking around as well. The walls underneath the balcony were carved as well, but as I ran my fingers over them, they felt hot to the touch. The butterflies that started hatching in my stomach felt more lively.  They were of...horrible, horrible things. The moment I started realizing what they depicted, I felt sick. There were doors, permanently closed, two on each wall. I didn’t know what they were for.

I was soon behind the counter, underneath the painting that I didn’t look at. I felt a crease in the wall,  making a large, rectangular imprint, that, being an idiot, I pressed.

It separated in half. A door.

Inside was a purple, gilded elevator, walls covered in purple drapery with bright golden trim, unfurled on the far wall to reveal a set of buttons embedded in a bright copper plate. The floor was made of polished steel, and I could see the mirrored ceiling.

I know it was a stupid thing to be afraid of, but...I was. I couldn’t move. I was frozen. I wasn’t even sure if my heart was beating. The only breaths I felt coming from my lungs were short and silent.

This thing - this _whole thing_ \- shouldn’t be here. This _shouldn’t exist_ . I can’t imagine how much this costs! Where’s the power coming from? Where’s the elevator heading? What were the statues made out of? What were the lights made out of? There’s no way this could be a thing. This dumb town was rich as hell, but there’s no way they could afford this, even more so if they weren’t going to open it to the public. And, even if this was made for that dumb sci-fi movie...well, they couldn’t make this, either! It was impossible. This whole thing was impossible and wrong and I wanted to go _now_.

I heard footsteps approach me, and a few sounds of mild curiosity coming from Raul and Lilli. I ignored them.

“I want to go home…” I whispered to myself, though I wasn’t quite sure where it came from.

Raul made a ‘huh’ noise, though I wasn’t sure if it was at me or the thousands of other things today that would warrant that sort of noise.

“I wanna go home, okay?” I affirmed, tightening my arms around my chest in more of a self-hug than a defensive way, and gently chewed the side of my mouth. “I just...this thing is bad, this whole place is just...I don’t trust it, and I don’t want to spend any more time here, and I just want to forget about this whole dang thing. Can we just go? Please?”

“I mean...yeah, hell, I’m getting weird vibes from here, too,” Raul said, though his  voice wasn’t really wavering like mine was.

“Come on, let’s go down!”

The two of us looked at Raul.

“I mean, it’s still dark out, right? Let’s just wait until the storm blows over.”

Raul stared at her.

“Really? You really think anyone’s been here before? C’mon, what if it’s, like, some sort of vault, or something cool like...like…” Lilli excitedly hypothesized, rubbing the black marble wall, over the dreadful symbols. “Like, if this is what the lobby looks like...”

Lilli opened her mouth to say something, then closed her mouth and glared at the ceiling. I could see the gears turning in her head.

“I don’t care about the money, I just…” I started, then pinched my mouth with my canines. I guess...this was huge, but I still didn’t feel safe. “I just want to go home, and...just…”

“Come on, get in there,” Lilli pushed Raul in. He winced, eyed Lilli, then pushed his glasses back up.

“Alright, fine.”

I started to creak out a sentence, then realized I had lost already.

Lilli put a hand on the side of the door, looked into the room, then smiled and stepped inside, rubbing the curtains, I guess to check out the quality, then looked back and nodded at me, which didn’t make me feel any better or any safer, but I still obliged. I tried to stay as close to her as possible, close enough that I could duck behind her if/when something bad happens, but far enough away to avoid tripping off any sort of gaydar she had.

Someone pressed a button, and it made a soft, clicking noise. I saw Lilli open the inside of her overshirt, pull out a small, metal, oval-ish object, and press it into the inside of her palm.

We descended.

I felt my sense of balance rise and fall up my legs, and the only other sound in the room was the distant whirring and soft _mmmm_ -ing of the walls of the elevator sliding down the shaft. It felt normal, like the elevator in a hospital or a hotel. This shouldn’t feel normal.

I wanted to just...ask Raul what this was, if this was a plan or some sort of prank and if this really was a left-over set from that movie, but I didn’t know him, like, at all, and I was too scared to say something that he wouldn't like, so I just kept poking and pinching my lips and rubbing my thumb between the joints of my index finger.

The elevator hit a hitch on the trip, bumped, and made me freeze up and bite down harder, making a neat little hole in the inside of my cheek. The slight twinge of pain reminded me of how I used to bite my tongue to ‘punish’ myself after any number of accidents or slip-of-the-mouth, and I instinctively stopped, plugged up the hole for a second with my tongue, and tasting the few traces of blood that flowed down.

Everything here was a bad omen.

The elevator stopped after the bump. After a small amount of mechanical wheezing and groaning from the elevator, the doors slid open, apparently without any help from me or the hot light.

Outside the door was a black void, formless and empty.

I seized up. This was the end. I knew it. I knew it! There’d be a monster, or a weird bear thing, or some sort of horrible, violent... _thing_ inside there. Instinctively, I shrunk myself up, and tried to hide behind something. There was nothing. I ended up shrinking behind Lilli.

Lilli tightened her face, then grabbed her phone again, turned on the flashlight, crept towards the entrance, and shone the light into the room. A few feet in front of the entrance to the elevator was a half-wall, and in front of that was a line of theater chairs that descended downwards, with the light from her phone barely reaching an elevated stage with a metal trim. I hoped she was enjoying her treasure hunt. I wasn’t.

I felt a lump of fear growing in my throat, and the air in my mouth and lungs grew thin. None of this - absolutely _nothing_ \- could feasibly exist. This was wrong. I couldn’t do it anymore. We had to leave. We had to leave whatever this was alone, leave it for some other people to handle, maybe authorities, maybe the army, maybe people with Mk. 4G1 incendiary grenades or Molotov cocktails or just something that could destroy something that _should not exist_ . What if this was some sort of drug den? What if this was made by a Canadian drug lord or whoever was pumping so much heroin into the US or what if this was a underground prison for people against the 1% or...what if this was connected to my dream? The one that made me sleep for a day and made those _fucking dreams_ and just…

“I wanna go…” I whispered, inching behind Lilli and tugging the side of her jacket, almost like a toddler would do to her mother. This whole place was bringing up this primal aversion to danger that lingered inside of me, and I felt the blood slowly and steadily drawn from my body.

Lilli glanced back towards me, then brought herself fully into the room, and shouted. “Hey! Who’s there?!”

No answer.

The air around me was cold and thin, and I had just realized I was walking alongside Lilli and Raul into the horrible, chill place. My firsts tightened, and the skin beneath my shirt tightened as goosebumps rose. I looked around, trying to find something, _anything_ in the darkness that meant it was safe and wasn’t just a horrible thing meant to kill me, but...it was all shadows. The area surrounding the elevator might as well not have existed, and everything past the dim light was just a jump off into oblivion.

I had to get out. I had to get out. I pulled my grip off of Lilli’s jacket, the cold aura surrounding the backed across the cold purple velvet floors, and, when I felt the sole of my foot hit the raised surface of the elevator’s floor, I took one last look at the horrible void, and I _bolted_ right into somebody’s chest.

My face was covered in a smooth, thick fabric, and the skin of my nose was flattened by a hard button. Was it Raul? No, I saw him before I turned around, I saw his back, this was somebody’s front, this couldn’t happen, this was _oh my god somebody else is here somebody else is here somebody else is here._

I fell backwards onto the floor, my back feeling like it was breaking from the collision with the carpet, and I stared up in awe at our doom.

A tall man, hands behind his back, wearing a double-breasted purple suit covered in white flower designs, wearing a full face mask, gold and silver, covering his mouth, with his eyes blacked out by a mesh.

He was going to murder us.

I tried to pull myself off the floor, for some reason, because...because...I didn’t know what else to do, I didn’t want to die, I just needed out, I had to get out, the elevator was behind him, you can tackle him, you can get past him, pull off his fucking mask and _get out get out_ but I was only able to shuffle backwards on the floor, crawling, almost, trying to get out as all the spirit drained from my body and the mere act of moving a hand or my foot felt like it was the final thing that would make me collapse, all while he was just watching me with his black eyes and blank, molded smile, and it wasn’t until I felt my back hit something hard that I was finally able to catch my breath and try to scream. Nothing came out.

This all happened within seven seconds.

I could only watch. I couldn’t do anything. I just watched.

“Excuse me, but...who are you?”

_oh my god it talked_

I felt Lilli’s jeans lightly scrape my shoulder, the fabric twisting, and her shoe scuffing the floor, almost stepping on my fingers, and then a metallic _shunk_.

“Oh my, that looks dangerous.”

I heard Lilli try to stutter something out, then grunting through closed teeth. “Who the _fuck_ are you?”

“Fuck?” the thing questioned. His voice wasn’t muffled by his mask at all - which made me wonder if it was even a mask, but, even so, the lips weren’t moving. Nothing on his ‘face’ was moving. Raul wordlessly shone his light on it, revealing a shock of deep-colored air, neatly combed back.

“Fuck?” Lilli repeated. “Your name’s _Fuck?”_

 _“_ My name? No, I suppose it isn’t.”

“What?”

By this time I finally managed to scream, a loud and piercing one, too, which was really all I was good at.

The masked thing looked at me again. “Are you okay?”

“Shut up!” Lilli pointed her hand out, with something metallic menacing towards the monster. “Who the fuck are ya? Take off the mask!”

“My…” it reached up, and pressed its fingers on it’s mask. The way it moved...it wasn’t natural...it was like a puppet, or, just...like someone who had lost control of how they moved. “Ah, this thing? No, I cannot. I’m terribly sorry.”

Lilli stomped her foot again, but thankfully I had my hands tightly wrapped around my knees, so she didn’t stomp on anything. “J-just - who are you? What d’ya want?!”

“I want to know why you’re here.”

“So do we.” Raul responded, strangely more calm than either me or Lilli. “Look, dude, just take off that mask, this ain’t funny anymore.”

“I cannot do that.”

Raul groaned as quietly as possible, I guess to be polite to the serial killer. “Okay, fine, just...tell us your name.”

“My name is…” he began to say, but his voice just...cut off.

There was no noise. We were all waiting for him to complete it, answer us, do anything...but...nothing. Just silence.

“Uh…” Lilli mumbled, and made the beginning of another word before the masked man cut her off, continuing his sentence.

“[ _Samuel_ ,](https://youtu.be/VY8xol6hvGA)” he finished, saying with a weird, somewhat dramatic flourish in his voice, while the rest of his body didn’t move. “Please, call me Samuel.”

“Ho-okay. Okay,” Raul breathed relief, as did I after that half-a-minute of anticipation. “Samuel...Samuel...okay…” he sounded like a guy talking someone off of a roof. “Now, Samuel, can you tell us what exactly this place is?”

“This place? Oh! Why didn’t you ask in the first place? I’d be quite happy to show you. Please, follow me!” It-Samuel said, taking a single lurch forward, like a toddler learning how to walk without balancing on something else, then continued walking off of the elevator into the darkness. “Ah, this is too dark for my tastes. If you’ll excuse me…” He suddenly straightened his back right at the precipice of the elevator’s light, twitched his arms up and forward, and clapped suddenly and sharply. The sound of his palms (maybe) striking reverberated around the room, making me realize it was much more vast than I could tell, and the clicking of spotlights and whirring of light bulbs warming up soon followed. The entire room slowly filled up with a dim, warm light, revealing everything.

I slowly stood up, pulling myself off of the carpet and peering over whatever I was backed up against, wiping the few stray droplets of tears from my eyes.

It was a…

“This is the theater...quite magnificent, don’t you think?”

What Samuel said.

It really was pretty. I was propping myself up a chair, one with a gold trim and purple cloth as it’s seat, one of many in the row. I was at the top row, with the rest of the rows of chairs steadily falling, like at a stadium, or, well, a theater. The walls and floors were stark black, with the walls curving upwards and creating semicircles for the roof. Most of the light was coming from a magnificent gold chandelier that held what seemed to be actual candles that flickered in the windless room, and making me wonder how Samuel managed to light them just by clapping his hands. The only other source of light, besides the elevator, was lines of small LEDs lining the stairs and the rim of what I guess was the stage, which was mostly a large circle obscured by purple, gold-trimmed curtains.

God, I felt sick.

I felt a tap on my shoulder, and heard Lilli whispering in my ear. “Okay, as soon as he’s distracted, we bolt.”

I nodded.

“This whole thing was inside...holy…” Raul stuttered, speaking in awe rather than the fear I was experiencing.

“Inside what?” Samuel turned towards the three of us.

“In this tiny little...theater...int the town.”

“I have not heard of such a place.”

Raul slumped his shoulders for a second, before righting them again. “So, uh, how long has this place been here? You’d think we’d hear about it by now...was this a movie set or something?”

“Movie?”

“Like...a...uh...just, uh, how long has this been here?”

“As long as I can remember,” Samuel paused, before turning back to the stage and stiffly walking down the stairs, arms locked firmly behind his back. “Admittedly, it hasn’t been a terribly long time, but I still don’t understand that concept well enough to be sure.”

Raul was silent, then leaned towards me and Lilli. “Okay, so we just…”

“Yeah, as soon as he’s distracted, we get in the elevator and bolt.” Lilli stated.

Raul nodded, then returned to his faux-interested voice, taking a quick picture of the room while he spoke. “So, Samuel, what do you use this place for?”

“Probably for the rich fucks to do their donkey shows…” Lilli grumbled, diverting her gaze to what I just now noticed was a knife in her hands. I stepped a few inches away.

“Ah, well, it has somewhat fallen into disuse…” He stated. I looked down at the golden trim, then the black carpet. Both were perfect, without any sort of wear. “Please, come down so I can continue with the tour.”

Lilli stared at Samuel’s empty eyes for a few seconds, then pressed the knife against her palm and collapsed it. “Yeah, sure.” She said, flatly and apprehensively, then slowly climbed down the stairs to the stage. Raul looked at Lilli, then did the same, leaving me alone up at the top stairs.

Goddammit. They don’t even…

Whatever. Just go down.

I stroked the sides of the theater seats as I went down the stairs, the rims and the ridges almost managing to calm me. My stomach had become infested with mosquitoes that buzzed inside, pricking my skin with their needles.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Samuel stated, walking up a set of stairs near the stage, like a weird, prototype military robot that you see all the time online. “I shall remove the curtains so you can see the stage. Oh, I’m so excited!”

He disappeared into the side of the stage, behind the curtains, followed by the sound of a pulley quickly and noisily operating. The curtains slowly pulled back, revealing Samuel standing in the exact center of the stage.

Behind him, almost taking up half of the circle, and most of the sides of the stage, was a large, sprawling, brass and gold machine. Metal, with diodes, wires, spinning generators, wire panels containing horrible pulsating lights, several panels with buttons and levers, cranks, just…

I couldn’t tell what purpose it served. It was functional. It was groaning, pulsating, breathing, _alive_ , and I could feel it piercing my eyes with the glowing buttons, staring into my mind, and passing judgement in the form of short bursts of steam from the pipes that littered its surface and the long screaming whines of a dying computer that crept out from inside the riveted panels. There were giant metal and plastic tubes connected to the floor, to the ceiling, to itself, with the sound of some sort of liquid flowing through them reminding me of horrible, giant veins keeping this awful creature, even as it wheezed it’s horrible breaths and it’s bones creaked. In the very middle of the stage, connected to the machine by a long pipe littered with hanging, loose wires, was a glass dome on a pedestal.

It looked like something _real_ , something that... _existed_ ...something that anybody with metal could pull together, but the more I looked at it, the more it’s noises penetrated my brain and reminded me that I was just as alive as it was...the more wrong it seemed, the more it felt like it just shouldn’t exist in this world, a horrible, infernal machine that wasn’t able to exist, that wasn’t able to survive or even _live_ in this world…breathing through strained breaths, gasping, twitching...

It kept breathing.

“Here it is! The orchestra! The theater’s masterpiece! Ah, absolutely magnificent!” Samuel exclaimed, then abruptly twisted his neck towards us while, without even looking, dragging his fingers over a set of black dials and a large, red switch.

I kept staring at it. It kept towering over me. It was taunting me.

“A-an orchestra, huh?” Raul said, with the smallest hint of nervousness in his voice, almost unnoticeable. “So, uh, how do you play it? What kind of music does it make?”

My fingers touched Lilli’s. I didn’t notice until I felt her hand curl into a fist.

Samuel kept rubbing the metal chassis of the beast, while staring his mask at Raul as he climbed up the stage. He was investigating it, looking at it’s skin, bringing out his phone again.

“Ah, therein lies the beauty of it...it’s simply self-reliant. Once it is needed, it plays.”

We stood in confusion. I kept backing away.

“Have you never heard an orchestra before? Well, I’m always quite happy to explain,” he rubbed his hand on the top of the pillar. I noticed it was...something was...“Herein lies the seed, the recognition of someone living...a relic of memories, life, death, fears, almost everything that makes somebody their own soul. The orchestra reads the symbol of this person, and plays a most wonderful rendition of the individual in person - with I, Samuel, conducting the affair. It plays the music of the mind, the soul, the body, and the theater, as all theaters do, respond in kind, all-”

“Jesus!” Lilli yelled, putting her hands on the stage. “Shut the hell up, you flowery dipshit! This whole thing is stupid, you’re stupid, just tell us what the hell it means!”

“I see.” Samuel said, his voice not changing tone or inflection, and his body not moving except for his hand rubbing the surface of the pillar. “I shall skip to the summation. Like any other theater, the relic will open a door to the individual’s inner sanctum - their mind, thei-”

“Oh my God, no, fuck that.” Lilli shook her head, pulled her hands off the rim of the stage, then tugged on my shoulder. “You _really_ expect us to believe that retarded crap? The fuck are you even - Raul, quit nerding out, we’re leaving.”

I readily walked by her side as she stormed up the stairs. I heard Raul apologize to the thing behind us as the breathing of the machine became duller and duller. By the time we were at the elevator, he was rushing towards us, before turning around and taking one last picture. The masked man was still standing near the pedestal, before turning his head towards the hell machine.

“Where are we going? We can’t-”

Without saying anything to either of us, Lilli pressed the button, which only clicked, and didn’t close the doors. She pressed it again, and again, and with every click that didn’t do anything, I imagined that thing - him - whatever it was charging us with...something...and…

Lilli smashed the button, the doors slammed shut, and I breathed again.

This is a dream. This is a hallucination. None of it exists. You’ll wake up soon.

I stared blankly at the metal door, then the lobby, not caring enough to care. All my brain power was sapped. I think I was in shock. I think I had already died.

We walked into the lobby. I think Raul and Lilli were saying something. Bickering. Comforting each other.

Maybe.

The lights in the theater flickered, and I saw the outside brighten - I saw the giant coffee cup. The inside of the theater darkened quickly, and the three of us were soon outside.

The sky was orange. The streets were chattering with people just off work. I saw a bright yellow moon above us. The seagulls were asleep.

I slowly walked to the car, ahead of everyone. Lilli was still abuzz, I didn’t want to hear it.

The mosquitoes in my stomach were still there, and the bouncing of the car only agitated them. My blood was all drained. I felt more sick than ever.

“Julie?” Raul asked. I think they were asking if I was okay.

“I’mfin.”I mumbled, turning onto my side, staring at the back of the driver’s seat and it’s scarred, leather upholstery.

“We’re, uh, at your house.”

“Okay.” I pulled myself off the seat, trying not to strain myself, then opened the door.

“Jeez, man, you look really pale.”

I stared at Raul, then at my own hands, automatically pulling up my sleeves that had fallen past my wrist. I felt the bags under my eyes more than usual. “I’ll see you guys later.”

“Yeah…” Raul nodded, turning his eyes towards the grass in front of the driveway. “Yeah.”

I stepped out of the car, went to the back, pulled out my folded-up bike that I didn’t know could fold until this morning, and my backpack. I dragged the bike to the side of the house, and climbed up the stairs as Raul slowly pulled out of the driveway.

I unlocked the door, stared at the clock on the wall, realized Rowan wouldn’t come home for another hour, and, after registering that fact, put my backpack down and laid down on one of the couches.

I felt sick.

The only light was coming in through the windows. I felt like I should turn on my phones, but the LEDS would probably just hurt my eyes.

Instead, I just turned so that I was facing the couch cushions, recounted my week so far, and stared blankly at the red fabric.

Maybe I should just go home.

I pulled up my phone, remembering that I should brace my eyes, and failed to do so. The screen realized I was in a dark room and automatically turned my brightness up.

Light is never good.

I had a message. My mom sent me a link from her gym’s blog about helpful exercises and yoga poses for waking up. I’ve done most of them before.

I got to the seated twist when another message came up. From Lilli.

**2day nvr happened**

**dont think about it**

**k**

**plz?**

I laid on the couch for too long. By the time I had tried to even start thinking, Rowan was in the living room with me, the sky was dark and murky, and the evening news - the Boston one, I think - was playing. Stuff about shit and dismay. I was still stirring about everything that happened today to really pay attention.

At one point I tried to turn over on my side, just to shift my insides and let them settle. There was a clean-cut weatherman showing a storm coming in, a lot of purple swirls from the east...or the west...whatever side the ocean was on. Lydon was just a tiny little blip on the map of the Massachusetts area.

I kind of just phased in and out of existence, mindlessly watching stock photos and graphs flow in and off the screen. Then I saw Lydon on the title bar, and the neutral-faced blonde anchor started talking.

"The small resort island of Lydon, Massachusetts was home to a hard-hitting tragedy today, when the body of what authorities believe could be a child was found in the protected forest early this evening."

I perked up. That was...a child? How young? Someone killed a kid?

Rowan slowly put down his tablet."The body was discovered by an off-duty firefighter, and due to the nature of the body, the entire park had to be closed off. According to the police, the nature of the body make it hard to say if it was a child, and if so, how young, and have made it clear that they will be hesitant to release more information."

The video of the forest...the theater...fucking everything of today…

I didn’t think again for the rest of the evening.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about how late this one was. Brazil attacked me in Civ VI and I just couldn't let that shit slide.  
> UPDATE8/19 - I just realized I did a bad idiot mistake and uploaded the last chapter along with this one. Fixed! Also added music.


	9. This Totally Fucking Destroys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What do your nightmares look like?

####  **Friday, August 3rd**

“AAAH! FUCK!” Lilli banged her hand on the table, her other hand clawing at her scalp. “I can’t get that fucking thing out of my head!”

I pressed my hands between my thighs, trying to make myself a thin, unnoticeable straight line.

I  _ had _ been thinking about it, but not in the way I wanted to. Last night I had a nightmare about being assaulted on the bus to Lydon and just stayed up thinking about the Theater, the serial killer in the mask, those glyphs, the painting...just sitting up in bed thinking. I really should. I shouldn’t be calmly contemplating this in bed. I was thinking about this the same way I was thinking about when my dad stayed overnight at a hospital for a bowel infection. I wasn’t worried. I was thinking. Just thinking. This shouldn’t happen.

“Like... _ fuck.  _ I just…” she groaned, banging her head against the table and just leaving it there. “What happened yesterday?”

I still felt like I was...I don’t know. Still trying to process it. Still trying to ignore it. “We went to main street, we had a good time, we went home.”

I heard her grumble from inside her arms. “Fuck you.”

I didn’t say anything.

“That...that fucking theater...it can’t…” she groaned, before pulling her head up and resting her chin on the table. “What do you think it is?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? Really? Come on, it’s...it’s obviously…” she waved her hand around at the wrist, before sadly resigning and letting it fall down. “It’s fucking...I don’t know…”

“Aren’t we supposed to forget about it?”

“Have you?”

I didn’t say anything. I breathed deep, but every time I closed my eyes I saw that damn machine.

Lilli stared at the walls of the commons for a long time, before making a small grunt from her throat. “Maybe we should go back…”

I stared into the beige table, speckled with blue and grey marks, making a boringly-colored galaxy, trying to ignore what she just said.

“Just go back, right? Take a video camera, get that Manuel guy on tape or something, get information...see if that thing works...I don’t know.”

I tried to let her tire herself out, since she seemed like the kind of person to do that, but when I re-focused, she was looking directly at me.

“I...I do-don’t want to.” I stated, still looking into the table.

“What?”

“I’ve...there’s been so much that’s…” I breathed in, collected my thoughts, and untended my shoulders. “If...if you’ve had the week I’ve had, you’d understand.”

“I need someone to come with me!” Lilli stated, like it was an obvious thing, and that fact alone would convince me. “Look, I’ll make sure nothing bad happens. If something bad happe-whatever. Shit. I can get a knife or something, in case something…” she looked around the lunchroom, which was still fairly empty, and leaned in close. “I just need another person. Raul’s off at some retarded thing with his parents, and I can’t fucking bring anyone else there. You’re the  _ only dude  _ that I can trust.”

I looked at her in the corner of my eye, then looked back at the table.

“You gonna come?”

“I’m-I...I really do-don’t…” I breathed loud and slow, then gathered my thoughts. “I’m not sure. I just have no idea what’s down there, what’s…” she kept looking at me expectantly, nodding her head at every word I said, while her mouth slowly slipping into a dissapointed, frustrated frown.

I couldn’t….I only knew her for a week, but…

She kicked my leg underneath the table, a bit more than playfully.

God, you’re so pathetic.

“I’ll come with you. After school.” I softly agreed.

“Good.” she tapped the table to get my attention. It worked. “Alright, that parking lot. The one we parked in yesterday? Wait, uh...I’ll text you where it is. But I’ll meet you there today, after school. I’ll bring, uh, like, something for both of us.”

I took a few seconds to process what she said. She was obviously excited, and I wasn’t sure why. I felt missiles pounding the inside of my skull. Every little cell in my brain was pointing and blaring sirens, telling me to ignoring this girl, leaving her dry, and just ignoring her for the rest of the year, living in silence and softness. No more friends. No more bullshit.

I ignored all of them.

“Okay. I’ll get ready.”

“Cool,” she checked her phone. “I gotta get out of here, but I’ll be there fifteen minutes after school gets out.”

I nodded.

 

Oh God, I was doing this.

I rode my bike, ignoring the scenery, ignoring the passing cars, trying to ignore what I was about to do.

Jesus Christ, I was going to die.

I wasn’t as afraid of that as I should’ve been. I think I had accepted that a long time ago, and all the different ways it could’ve happened - granted, most of them were self-inflicted and…

Just keep riding.

It was a nice day out. The sun was shining. I guess I was close enough to the shore to hear the seagulls and boat bells in the distance. I smelled sea salt, asphalt, and the few open restaurants that were cooking meat or crab or something. It made me want to stop, but I had to keep pushing forward to meet with this girl that I barely knew anything about other than she probably hated me because I was goddamned stupid and desperate.

Since I left, Rowan had texted me twice, once about how there was something in the basement he had for me (which he readily clarified was an old wall mirror he forgot to put in my room), and that he would be home early. I responded (after pulling over) that I was going back to main street with Lilli today, and I’d be late. He didn’t text back by the time I got back on the road, but I think he was worried about the accident in the forest last night.

In the distance, I saw the parking lot, and I waited for all the cars to pass while awkwardly pedaling over. I haven’t ridden a bike in a city for a while, so I still didn’t really get right-of-way.

I propped my bike right up against a red and white dirt bike that I assumed was Lilli’s, since the rest of the parking lot only had cars, then remembered I still didn’t have a bike chain, so I spent a minute or two folding it up and leaving it by the wrought-iron fence. I walked across the crosswalk, and started walking down the concrete path to the lodge.

“Psst. Hey.”

I turned around at Lilli’s voice, and saw that she was leaning against the fence.

“Uh…” I carefully stepped towards her. “I...think I should say...I-I’m not really sure I want to go back…”

She closed her eyes for a second, while the rest of her head showed that she was rolling her eyes, and pulled herself from the fence. “Yeah, look, I know, but we’re just going to do this one thing. Check it out, right? See what’s there.”

“Didn’t we already...yeah. Okay,” I nodded. “I don’t want to spend too much time there, though...I...don’t like it…”

“Yeah…” she turned her head towards the doorway. “C’mon.”

I followed her, but bumped into someone - Raul. Lilli turned back. “Hey! Hey, where the fuck do you-”

“Huh?” He looked over his shoulder, grimaced, then leaned over to the elderly woman he was with - white, pale, probably not related to him. She nodded and stepped back. “Pss, hey, quiet!”

Lilli rolled her eyes. “Do you have photos of the-”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“What the fuck are you doing here, then?”

He sighed. “Me and Delilah are observing th-”

“Uh, sure, hey, you got pictures?”

Raul groaned, unzipping the camera bag slowly, taking out the black camera from yesterday, and looking in surprise as Lilli swiped it from him.

“H-hey, come on!”

She turned it on, using the touch screen to swipe through everything.

“Lilli! Give that back!”

“I need it for today, gotta take pictures of whatever’s-”

“Use your phone then!” He said, growing more and more agitated.

“I don’t got a fifty pixel-whatever that you have! Fuckin-come on, Raul, let me-”

“No, because you-”

“I ain’t gonna break it!”

“It’s - was my fucking aunt’s!”

Lilli snapped back to reality, then quietly handed it back to Raul. He hurriedly checked it, like Lilli’s fingers couldn’ve melted the plastic or something, then turned it back off. “For...for Christ’s sake, Lilli, sometimes you just care more about yourself than other people.”

She crossed her arms and stayed silent.

“You guys do whatever, I have to go back.” He mumbled, giving Lilli a nasty look before walking back to the old white lady. 

I felt a palm on my back. “Come on, we’re going.”

I nodded and obliged. We walked down the street, rounding a few corners, with me staring at the fresh, clean sidewalks that felt like they deserved more cracks in them. Every time she tapped me to show a crosswalk or something I flinched, but she didn’t notice.

I didn’t want to do this.

I saw the giant coffee cup in the distance.

I  _ really _ didn’t want to do this.

The theater was still there, standing angry. Ominous. I felt the machine tremble from under the Earth. The light was red, so the two of us walked over and stood underneath the lighted awning. It didn’t turn on, and the inside was dark.

“Huh…” Lilli knocked on the door, then tried pulling it open. “Shit, locked.”

“Okay, uh, can we go?”

Lilli turned back at me, but then looked up at the lights. “They turned on last time, huh?”

I nodded, but I didn’t look at her.

“Come on, dude, open up!” She started banging on the door. “Light up! You goddamn…”

She looked around, at the statues that grimaced menacingly, at the ticket stand, at the darkness. “There’s gotta be a switch around here, something...this is like a movie, right?”

“Yeah, sure...a movie.”

“C’mon, go look!” She eyed me, then started moving towards me with her fists...closed. Shoulders squared. She reached at me.

I had a brief moment of fear. Of remembrance. I remember this all too much...so much that...a girl putting her arm around me, around my breast, under my shirt and…

Oh god, not her. I knew it would...

I flinched, closed my eyes, blinked, caught my breath, closed my eyes and tripped over myself. Backwards. Against the ticket stand, and hitting my back against cold steel and glass, and all of my body became warm in light.

When I looked up, I saw Lilli looking confused, the lights turning on, and everything around was was a deep void.

“Oh, shit. Are you alright?” she reached towards me, but I…

“Woah, woah, okay. I-uh…” she looked shocked, staring at her own hand, and just sighed for a second. “I-I’m sorry. Christ. But…what did you do?”

“I don’t...I didn’t do anything…”

“No, it’s on now. C’mon, let’s go.” 

She pat me on the shoulder with a surprising amount of tenderness. It didn’t hurt this time. It still hurt, but...it was okay. 

We stepped inside. It looked the same, like...exactly the same. Chills went down my spine - the numbness from yesterday was gone.

“Uh, hey...you remember yesterday? Uh...where that due, Jake, he said...that orchestra piece of shit could open up someone’s mind? Like a lobotomy?”

“Y-yeah…”

“You think that’s…”

“No. No.”

She kicked one of the chairs, seemingly just to see it move a bit. “Here.” she mumbled, passing me a plastic tube.

I grabbed it gingerly, rubbing my hand on it. It had a rubber grip, like a...oh.

I found a button, and the rest of the baton shot out like a bullet. It was thick, the size of half a baseball bat, and weighted. I stood as I thought about...what I’d use this for.

Hopefully not.

“Yeah, uh, I got it from some creepy dude. Well, creepy to me. Didn’t buy it from him or anything.”

I nodded and stayed silent. I...this was a weapon. An actual weapon.

An actual…

“You keep it.”

I slowly pushed the top, the...hitting part back down, feeling the spring bounce and ripple.

We walked to the, where the elevator...was. It should be. I felt a lump of guts grow in my throat, like a pipe from my stomach. Butterflies turned to moths to mosquitos in my stomach.

Behind the counter was the painting that I couldn’t look at. Underneath was the wall. On the wall was a 

“Woah.” Lilli said, her glum mood apparently lifting. “That’s wicked. Like a goddamn spaceship, right?”

“Yeah.” I nodded, waiting for the doors to slowly creek open. What if this was a spaceship? Like, all those old conspiracy theories about cities being built on spaceships...wait, no...God, don’t believe that crap about ancient astronauts. Even if that’s the only way this could logically make sense.

I brought my hand away as the elevator opened, showing the weird, curtained inside. It sort of...I couldn’t help but think of the Velvet Room, all draped in curtains, but...shut up. Just don’t think about that.

Lilli stepped inside. “Get your thing ready.”

“My-oh.” I held the baton in one hand, pressing the button, seeing it extend almost instantly, and tapped the side of the elevator door to...I don’t know, test it’s strength, or something, then retracting it again buy pushing it down.

“If that thing tries to grab you, I’ll tackle ‘em or something, then we tag-team him.” 

“Okay.” I was already pretty good at tackling, so I think I could do that, but she probably didn’t believe me.

I pressed the button with the baton, trying to make sure not to infect myself with bad germs. The elevator closed, and we descended.

I breathed slower and quieter. I wanted to calm myself down. Not really. I was trying to make myself braver. I guess. I wanted to…

I don’t know. I didn’t feel okay mentally. I never did. But now was different. I was just accepting of everything. Spaceship elevator? Sure, why not? Hey, Julie, do you want to go to a scary place and beat up some dude in a mask that could probably kill you? Of course, girl I’ve only known for a week that I’m starting to like because I’m so goddamn desperate! Here, take my baton that I stole off a pedophile! Hey, check out this machine that’s alive and  _ also _ wants to kill you! Oh, you slept for a whole goddamn day and you had a horrible nightmare? Don’t worry about it! This weird place that you dream about every goddamn night that tells you for future? The fact that your dreams know so much more than you? Oh, stop worrying so much, Julie, this is me, the voice in your head, stop fretting! It’s all normal. Oh, look, less than a day at the new school and you already befriended a bully and a horrible fucking person. Welcome to fucking Lydon!

“Julie?”

“Huh?”

“You okay? You look tense.”

I breathed, and stopped clenching my teeth. “I’m fine.”

“Stop freaking out. We’ll be good.” The elevator stopped its descent, and Lilli started nudging the doors with her boot until they creaked open.

The lights were still on. That freak in the mask and the suit was nowhere to be seen. The machine was behind it’s skin of curtains.

“So far so good.” I mumbled to myself, still rubbing the button on the handle.

“ **Ey** !” Lilli yelled. “Samantha! Get out here?”

I nudged her hand with my elbow. “It’s Samuel.”

“Whatever.” She walked down the stairs to the stage, running her hand against the top of the seats and making the metal of her knife’s handle clang loudly with the gold of the seat corners.

The curtains opened right as she stepped off onto the floor. Samuel was in the middle.

“Oh! Hello there, my friends! I’m glad to see you’ve returned.” He bent forward, like a scripted motion on an animatronic, then returned back to his neutral pose of standing upright, with his hands held tightly behind his back.

I climbed down the steps right as Lilli walked towards the stage. “Yeah, listen, we need answers. And don’t try any funny business.”

“Funny business? I’m afraid this isn’t a comedy. Or, perhaps, it could be, but only because it shall have a happy ending.”

I heard Lilli say something rude under her breath, then went back to eying Samuel through it’s mask. “Okay, whatever. Look, just tell us what’s up.”

“Oh, the chandelier? It was made by the finest craftsmen in a-”

“Jesus fuc-fine. Okay. Nice thing,” Lilli rubbed her face in exasperation. “We just want to know what this place is. Like, a theater underneath a town that wasn’t here and - it doesn’t make sense. I-we need  _ answers _ , alright, you freak?”

“Ah. I understand,” he nodded - well, he slowly moved his head up and down on the joint in his neck. “I’m quite afraid I cannot say much. Time and memory are still very strange to me.”

Lilli looked back at me, with her hand in that ‘what the hell’ motion.

“The truth, as far as I know, is that I was here. And then you were here. I know what the orchestra is and I am quite sure of what it is capable of doing. I’m still not completely sure of anything else. I’m terribly sorry.”

When he said ‘orchestra’, my eyes immediately went to the giant, groaning brass machine in the back of the stage. Our eyes met, and it sent chills down my spine. I could’ve sworn I heard it laugh at me when I backed away, behind Lilli.

Lilli nodded slowly. “Okay, fine, amnesia or whatever the fuck. Can you explain what that thing does again?”

“The orchestra? Ah, quite the exquisite little contraption, isn’t it? As I said naught but a few hours ago, it plays the songs of souls, the true des-”

“You’re not writing a fucking poem. Just tell us what it does.”

Samuel nodded again, pacing towards one of the many control panels on the side of the machine’s body. “The small dome on the pedestal shall act as the sheet music. I read the music, and I conduct the orchestra to play the specific song of that soul, calling down the entrance to their true self. Their innermost sanctums. Their dreams.”

Lilli looked back at me, then looked back at the dome in the center. “So...dreams? The...the inside of…can we try it out?”

“What?!” I yelled.

“Look, it’s all gonna be smoke and mirrors. It won’t be bad.” Lilli whispered back.

“Ah, of course, I’m always looking for interesting compositions. Please, come up, play your part..” Samuel beckoned to the stairs on either side, wrapping around the circular part of the stage.

Lilli started climbing up, then motioned for me to come along. I did so.

“So…” She lifted up the glass dome in the center. “I put something in here, right? Like, what?”

“Ah, but it’s already there...” he pointed to the inside of the dome. Inside was...a golden cloud thing...something that swirled and crackled with spikes of pink thunder.

“So...can you turn it on?”

“What’re you doing?!” I said, trying to grab her wrist, though my hands barely wrapped around it. “You’re going to turn on some damn freaky monster machine?!”

Lilli sideyed me, like  _ I _ was the crazy one in all of this! “I’ll get it back.”

“What if you don’t?! What if it eats you?”

“That would be quite unprecedented…” Samuel quietly mused. “Though, this whole production seems to be…”

“What if you die?!” I continue. “Don’t you...there’s other things! We can leave! We can do anything but this! Huffing gasoline would be safer!”

Lilli continued to look at me, annoyed. “If I die, well, it’d be new.” She slowly freed her hand of my grasp, then turned fully to Samuel. “Turn it on.”

I stared at his black eyes.

We were going to die.

“Ah! Excellent!” Samuel said excitedly.

The machine was going to kill us.

He paced back over to the machine, gripping a big black lever with his hand and thrusting it down. The machine roared to life, steam pouring out of the giant vents and pipes on its metal plated skin, the screams from its body filling the entire theater and invading my mind. I saw the blood on the pedestal slowly boil, then evaporate into nothing. It was the only thing I could focus on. 

“It’s gonna be fine.” Lilli whisper-screamed over the roars. She didn’t sound scared at all.

The roars continued, but...I started hearing noises inside of my head. Not voices. Noises. Guitars screeching and shredding and fading into speaker feedback, then mandolins and gongs joining them, with the sounds being given heavy reverb. Cars started honking along with the beat of the guitars, with a strange, Asian-sounding language being spoken and sung in tandem. The sounds of shattering glass and loud drums joined in an alien harmony, then the quiet chimes of a clock as a calm woman talked gibberish, repeating it ad infinutum, a crowd cheering as a marching band played while somebody screamed into a low-fi microphone.  People started talking to me, in English, the voices overlaid so much that I couldn’t hear what they were saying, then sounds of a hand slapping skin, and what I could only describe as the crunching of bone, all being played inside my head as the machine screamed and laughed and yelled all around me.

Then it all stopped.

Lilli looked into the distance with her eyes wide open.

I rubbed my forehead. The music was...I don’t think I could even call it music. But, even so, it wasn’t hurting my head. It was like it was playing over headphones, and even if it was more than a bit chaotic and loud, it didn’t make my brain and my ears hurt more than anything else.

A pulley started squealing far above us, a weak, squeaky rolling sound that seemed at odds with what we just experienced. I looked above, then nudged Lilli as a wooden door slowly came down and rested gently at the edge of the stage. 

“Wonderful!” Samuel exclaimed. I wasn’t looking, but he was at the far end of the machine, and multiple dials and levers and switches had been turned in different positions. The machine’s lights were all dull, and it was quiet, still, dead.

Lilli turned to me. “You heard all that, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“It was magnificent, wouldn’t you agree? Quite the performance, if I do say so myself,” Samuel bowed, more fluidly than ever. “Now, may I direct your attention to the fruits of your labor.”

The two of us walked to the door. It was wood-framed, but the door itself was metal, with a few bumper stickers and logos of what I guessed were bands and sports teams placed around it. The very top said ‘HOME’ in faded red.

“Go on! Open it!” Samuel urged.

Lilli looked back at him, then at the metal doorknob. The moment she placed her hand on it, I slapped it down.

“Don’t! We don’t know what’s behind it!”

Lilli tapped the thin wood wall around the door. “Do you really think something’s inside? It’s just a fucking wall part.”

I looked behind the door. It was flat, but…

I saw the door open in.

“Lill-” I shouted, wanting to scold her, but at the same time knowing she could hit me or something if I raised my voice. Or, well, that’s what I thought.

I looked on the other side and froze.

Through the doorway, seemingly stretching off into infinity, was a dark, metal and concrete hallway. The sound of flickering fluorescent lights and indistinct and distant chatter slowly flowed from inside.

It couldn’t exist.

It  _ couldn’t exist. _

This was actual,  _ literal _ reality warping. I couldn’t wrap my brain around it. Every time I looked into the hallway, all the doors, the sounds, the trash on the ground, it…

It was indescribable.

I put my hand in. My flesh became cold. The air inside was different. I wrapped my hand around the doorframe, and felt concrete walls.

I wanted to throw up. I heard the baton fall to the theater’s floor.

Something pressed on my shoulder.

I could only stutter out ‘please don’t, please don’t, I can’t go in there, don’t go in…”

“Should we go after her? I do not think it’s adviseable to enter alone…” Samuel said.

I looked in through my pained tears, my body’s way of hiding the abomination from me.

Lilli was walking down the hall, knife unfurled, heading further and further away from the door and into the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! Let's try to upload a bit later.  
> Just a note, unless I have a miracle happen, I can only upload one more chapter until we have to take an indefinate hiatus. However, the good news is that when we start updating again, we'll have at least art of the first Persona and the first boss.  
> Yep. Boss soon. Get ready.  
> Also, Lilli seems like an asshole right now - that's because she is. At least, initially. But she'll get better real soon. Stay tuned!


	10. This Will Destroy You

“No...no, no, no…” My breath became shallower and faster. She was gone. No. She was...if I came out of here, nobody with me, Lilli was missing, she would be gone, missing, and they’d think I’d...nobody would believe…

I couldn't…

I grabbed my baton with my trembling hand, pressing the button until it finally shot out, and swallowed the bile growing in my throat. My entire body was shaking, and it felt like my heart was trying to dig it’s way out of my chest. I knew I shouldn’t go in there. I could die.

I persisted.

“Do not worry! I shall join you. I do believe I know more about these realms than you,” Samuel stepped into the door. “These things are fraught with danger that even I am not aware of. We must be sure to save your friend before something horrible happens.”

I nodded.

Keep him in your sight at all times.

I closed my eyes, found my footing, even though I was standing on solid ground, and stepped inside the doorway.

My body became enveloped in a dark, cold, thick air. I looked around, realized my eyes were still shut, and then looked around with them open.

It felt wrong.

I waved the baton in front of my eyes, and it felt more...fluid. Smooth. When you see a slow-motion video of a bat hitting a ball, and the bat seems to warp and wave as it flies through the air. It’s a movement the human eye cannot perceive, and you can only notice it through cameras that make everything thousands of times slower. As I waved brought the baton down on my hand, it seemed to jiggle, while also feeling like it normally did in...the real world. I guess. It felt like I was able to see every slight movement of it all at once.

Everything seemed different. I had to take a few seconds to take it all in. The trash littering the ground seemed to be magazines, flyers, cans of something, but all the text on them was muddy and dull. The walls were concrete, aged and cracked with a dull red strip running it’s length, but all the signs of weathering on them seemed to slightly shift and pulsate the moment I took my eyes of them. There were posters of smiling Asian and white girls in tiny outfits, but the fine details of their faces - their eyes or their hair - and the text on the posters themselves were muddy and watery, and every time I tried to read them the letters danced and melted down the posters. The ceiling was a network of crossing pipes, sometimes bursting with steam, some of them broken, hanging, mist and water flowing down in drips.

In the distance was a [dark fog](https://youtu.be/zQX2To1uBC8).

I held my breath in, in an attempt to get my voice in order, then shouted again. “Li-Lill!”

No answer.

I brought out my phone. I thought it’d make a good flashlight, but the screen seemed...melty. All of the pixels were spread around, with the text and my urban camo background slowly flowing down the screen in long, black streaks. It wouldn’t react to any touch or shaking or anything. I slid the stylus out. It didn't even vibrate.

Crap.

“Sam? Uel?” I asked the air around me, not sure where he went.

“Yes?”

“Where are we?”

“I do not know. I’m sorry.”

“What?” I faced him, putting my phone away and grasping my baton. “You said you knew what this was!”

“It seems I was vastly overestimating my knowledge.”

Great.

“Okay, let’s...uh…” I looked into the fog at the far end of the hallway. “She went that way, right?”

“I believe so.”

“Okay. Let’s move.” I stated, sounding way more calm and composed than I actually was.

I slowly stepped down the hall, my footsteps creating echo-y noises on the concrete. Samuel’s dress shoes were much more noisy noticeable than my child-sized sneakers. 

I shouted ‘Lilli’ again once we were a fair bit down, but there still wasn’t an answer.

“Uh, miss…” Samuel asked, sounding more scared than I was used too. “This doesn’t seem right.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“Do you think the floor is curved?”

“Huh?”

I looked down, then behind me, and stood shocked for a second. The floor was curving downwards, and we were steadily going around the curve. I tried to wrap my head around it - it felt like that one planet-based platform game...just, don’t try to make logic out of this. This is far outside what reality should be.

I heard a pipe fall in front of us, and I screamed, swirling around and bracing my baton to fight whatever the hell that was.

“Miss!” Samuel shouted, standing in front of me. “Don’t worry, it's…”

Nothing happened. The hallway become silent again.

I sighed and relaxed my muscles. “It’s okay, I was just a lil’ bit on edge.”

“A-ah. I see.”

We kept exploring down the curved hallway. The torn posters and graffiti and cans everywhere kept bothering me. I couldn’t read them. I knew they were words. They just didn’t make any sense to me.

I shouted Lilli again.

“YEAH?”

“Oh my-!” I turned to Samuel. “She’s here!”

“I see! I think it came further down.”

We ran quicker, me trying to bounce and maneuver around cans and bottle shards and what I hoped  _ weren’t _ condoms, while Samuel simply strided through them. The air became filled with the smell of roasting meat, probably beef, and I saw a light. A few lights. Food stands.

Pink hair.

“Lilli!” I yelled, running up to her as she was trying to climb over the counter of a stadium food kiosk. “What the hell is wrong with you?!”

“Huh?”

I swiped at her with the baton. “We’ve been looking all over this goshdamned place for you, you dumbass! You shouldn’t have run off! You could’ve died!”

“Almost did.” She shrugged.

“What?!”

“Nothing. Here, boost me.”

“This ain’t a time for eating!”

“I’m not gonna try to fucking eat whatever they’re selling here! It’s light.” She gestured to the inside of the kiosk while sitting on the counter. “Look, it’s all clean in there.”

I looked inside. The counters and ovens and deep fryers and cleavers were all shiny metal. Everything was spotless, if a bit disheveled. There were piles of beef and fish in packages, a rack of different poultry hanging on hooks, and strings of papers with that same weird, unreadable script on it.

“Oh my…” Samuel put his hands on the counter. “What is that smell?”

“Bao,” Lilli said. “I think it is. I know those spices.”

“Ah! Delicious!”

“You ain’t getting any.” I grimaced towards him.

“But, listen, it’s light. It’s clean. The rest of this place is puke and shit. We’re supposed to go here.”

“No! We’re supposed to go back there and back to the door and back to your house and out of this _fucking_ **_awful_** nightmare place!”

Lilli looked at me weirdly.

Oh crap.

“I-I-I’m sorry, I…” I put my hand to my mouth. I can’t believe I…

“It’s fine. Look, we just have to get deeper.”

“I don’t...okay.” I sighed. I felt my confidence and control over the situation drain out of me.

Lilli jumped off of the counter onto the other side, then stuck a hand out. I grabbed it, and she helped lift me over and onto the nice, slick porcelain floor. Samuel tried to walk clean through the counter, stopped, then walked over it like it was a mound or a stair or something.

“So…” I said, not sure what to actually say.

“I remem...nah. It’s nothing.”

“Huh?”

Lilli looked back at me while taking a piece of paper from the long line and reading it. Actually reading it. “This was one of the, like, the place the locals went back in Hong Kong. Like, you had those shitty expensive places for tour...I’m just, uh, whatever.” She stuck the paper in her back pocket, took off her jacket, and tied it around her waist. “Should be a door.”

“I’ve had enough of those for now.” I mumbled.

“Door to where?” Samuel asked. I looked back at him. He was touching the hot oven, I screamed silently, rushed over, and pulled his hand up. Had he seriously never used an oven before? 

“Plaza. Then Apliu Street.”

I silently tried to tell Samuel that the oven was very,  _ very _ hot, then turned back to Lilli. “What’s that?”

“Nothing. Wouldn’t be here, anyway.”

She walked over to a door inside a small hideaway, nudged it with her foot, then kicked it open, which shouldn’t happen because it was a metal door against her sneakers, but, whatever, anything could happen now, I guess. The door swung open immediately as it ejected a few loose screws from the thing that  _ should’ve kept it closed and not easily openable from a boot strike and AAAAAAAAAAA _

“Shit.” I heard her mumble.

I walked over and felt my fear of heights kick in.

It was a pit. A dark pit that started immediately after the door. There were walls, of course, and it looked like a room, but it was still a pit.

“Okay. Cool. Dead end. LET’S LEAVE.” 

“Hold up.”

She edged a foot out, then waved her arms like she was about to lose balance and fall to her death because  _ she was _ . I pulled on the back of her jacket. “What the hell are you-”

“Woah. Gimme a…” She walked back behind me, shook her head, then walked over the edge.

Not over, as in falling. She walked across it.

As in, she was standing on the wall.

“How’d you-!” I yelled, kneeling on the floor, trying to figure out how it was…

The corner was rounded. Not by much, but it seemed to be a perfect curve.

“Ha! Jesus!” She yelled, putting her hand to her forehead. “Wow, that’s a fucking weird feeling. Like two things of gravity.”

“How the hell did you know that?”

She looked down. “Dunno.”

“Okay, now shouldn’t you come back up?”

“Try it!”

“No!”

Lilli stretched out her hand.

I took it. 

I stood up, and she gently guided me over the ledge.

It did feel awful. Nauseating, even. I felt the two...gravitational pulls, I guess. One from the kitchen, the other from this pit. My brain was so confused about it. I didn’t know which one to be attached to, and it was rapidly switching between telling myself that I was on stable ground or that I was freefalling, and it wasn’t until I was fully on the wall that I felt stable. It mixed up my insides, bouncing around the acid in my stomach and making it splash up my throat.

“Ah, hell…” I groaned, trying to use the baton to stabilize myself, which didn’t even work. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”

I saw Samuel walk over effortlessly, then watched as he looked around the chasm. “Perhaps we should move.”

“Can we...just...take a breather…” I groaned as I tried to tighten my stomach.

I heard switches turn on behind us, followed by electrical whining.

“We should move on.” I agreed.

The walls around us became covered in reds and greens and oranges and blue, bathing us in a rainbow of lights.

“Woah…” Lilli awed. I looked up and saw what seemed to be neon lights, most with the blurry text, though some of chickens and fish and cameras and computers and...almost everything I could think of. There was an orange pistol that fired yellow in a two-frame animation, a smiling cowboy giving us the thumbs up, what I think was supposed to be the Vegas sign, pairs of dice, an exploding grenade…

Lilli moved around the pit. Thanks to the light, I could see that we were standing on an ornate metal pathway.

“Uh? Friends?” Samuel slightly panicked. “I really think we should keep going onwards. Preferably as fast as possible. Perhaps faster than that.”

“This is so fucking wicked!” Lilli smiled, with her eyes as wide as I’ve ever seen them. 

I heard a few tubes burst behind us.

“Shit, like, everything’s here...that’s the one from that one pizza place, and...those were my old apartments…”

More tubes burst in the distance, and I heard the glass tinkle to the ground. Then a low groan, one that sounded like a beast rising from a slumber while booting up a computer.

“I think it would be in our best interests to abscond.” Samuel pleaded with his hands, approaching Lilli, with the slightest hint of panic in his weird voice.

The metal door on the floor behind us noisily shut.

Signs were bursting every second now, and soon, even faster than that. The lights to the left were rapidly exploding in rows, and the darkness growing faster and faster.

Lilli stopped reminiscing. “That ain’t good, is it?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

The groaning started again, louder. The concrete wall behind us burst in two.

I stopped thinking.

Lilli grabbed my arm and tore my from my frozen state, making me trip and tumble before I caught up, stumbling over my tiny feet, my neck twisting back and seeing the concrete wall bursting. Behind it was a giant…

An ocean of shimmering and rippling black water, one that quickly solidified, formed a horrible, wrinkled, demonic face, a mouth of jagged, loose fangs and red eyes, golden irises that shone like spotlights until it landed on the three of us...and screamed. It was a scream of anger and hatred, directed at me. Pieces of it’s flesh broke of, revealing more black water, leaking out of the cracks and solidifying in the air, forming spiked, black hands, running their fingers over the walls until they lurched forward like tentacles.

My mind didn’t register anything for a second until my legs picked up and ran forward.

I bolted ahead of Lilli, running as fast as my tiny little pale legs could carry me. Why am I already normalizing this?! This shouldn’t be an everyday experience for me!

“Hey! Don’t-!” Lilli sprinted next to me, trying to keep pace. Samuel was jogging, lagging a little bit behind us.

“What the hell is this?!” I yelled to Samuel over the sound of bursting glass and pain and fear.

“Exactly!” He shouted back.

More hands lurched forward. Their hands ran across the ground, scurrying on their fingers, the demon screaming and laughing. We were still in it’s spotlights.

“Ah! Shit!” Lilli grabbed her arm, making her stop for a second, just in time for the arms to wrap their spiked fingers around her ankle. She tried to shake them off, but they kept digging deeper. I saw red stain her pants leg.

Twenty things went through my mind. The demon began laughing, and I realized that, if I didn’t act, I’d…

I’d come out of that theater with one less person. I have a record. She may be a bitch, she may...this may come back to haunt me…

I jumped backwards and grabbed her arm. She looked at me in shock, her grip tightening as the arm pulled her down and back with surprising force.

“I got you!”

“What?”

The lights kept dying around us, glass scraping the arm’s flesh and our clothes. I kept wincing at every burst of sparks.

Lilli kept struggling, until she wrestled the arm and positioned it under her foot, and, with one final, tremendous stop, crushed it with her boot. It cracked in two, splattering black water everywhere, and the demon’s face recoiled back in slight pain.

“Run!”

We kept racing down the rapidly-dying rainbow hallway as sparks and glass and the horrible coughing of the broken tubes chased us. I didn’t look back. I felt the neon fill the air, or, something that was giving me energy, something that felt like it was carrying me, something that was pushing me or…

We chased the light of the signs as they were slowly expanding. In the distance was a wall of color, and as we raced, as I was slowly running out of breath, I think I saw arrows pointing towards a dark patch. 

“WALL!” I shouted, slightly slowing my run.

Lilli looked ahead, winced, then ran forward, put her injured arm forward, and burst through the dark patch, making it open and scatter small shards around. It was another door. She stumbled a bit, then looked behind, and yelled “GET IN! NOW!” at us.

I scampered inside, followed by Samuel calmly walking through the door. Lilli shut it, cutting off the rainbow lights just as the final ones died, then put her back up against the door to make sure it was shut.

Then, it started banging and groaning, the metal creaking and sounding like it was about to give way. Dents started appearing, punches, someone trying to break it down. I got out my baton and approached it, ready to strike at whatever it was. I wasn’t. But I wasn’t sure. Then, there was a dying, groaning noise,and the dents stopped.

Lilli finally looked like she was breathing again. I noticed the small streak of red flowing down her arm. The red on her leg was already coagulated.

“Are you-” I started.

“Yeah. It’s tiny.” She felt the injury, winced, and pulled out a tiny, red-stained shard, throwing it to the ground. 

Gross.

I finally looked around where we were. The ground was nice and carpeted, with a logo of some sports team that I couldn’t quite remember. The walls were painted white with red and blue stripes, and there were two L-shaped rows of wooden lockers. Everything was well-lit.

“Sam. What the hell was that?” Lilli coughed, I guess from the dust, and wiped some of the blood off her arm. I felt behind my shirt and noticed that there were a few small scrapes in my skin, and the fabric of my shirt was a bit torn. Crap. At least nothing was...oh, wait, maybe one or two were slightly bleeding. It didn’t hurt. It felt like a paper cut five minutes afterwards. Thanks, adrenaline.

Samuel turned to us, putting his hand to his chin. “I suppose it was those signs rupturing all at once.”

“Yeah, no shit! What was that? What is this?”

“It’s you.”

“Sonuva…” Lilli groaned. “Whatever. Fine.”

I walked over to one of the walls, opening up a white box with blurry red lines on it. As I had guessed, it was a first aid kit. “Lilli, here.”

“Fuck, you want me to trust shit dream medicine?”

“Dreams?”

Lilli sheepishly rubbed her arm. “I...this is what it feels like, right? To you?”

I moved the lid of the box up and down, watching it wave and bounce against my hand and it’s hinges. “I...maybe.”

She pulled out a small bandage, biting off the plastic underside and pressing it against the cut. “Feels real.”

I nodded, looked at the rest of her to, uh, make sure there weren’t any other injuries, then browsed the rest of the room. The only door was the only we just came in from. Samuel was browsing the locker’s contents.

“Are we stuck here?” I mused out loud.

“Huh?”

“There’s...only one…” 

“No, look, there’s a grate.” Lilli pointed up above us. There was a metal air duct entrance. 

“That only I could go in.”

She looked down at the first-aid kit. “Shit.”

I apprehensively walked over, still trembling a bit from when we first entered, and grabbed the dented door’s handle, opening it cautiously. It was still dark, and there were a few sparks coming out of the walls. “Crap…” 

I heard a metal thing fall to the ground, and grabbed my baton tighter. “What was that?”

I looked behind me. Samuel was halfway into a pair of football pads.

“Son of a-Sam! Don’t screw with this sorta stuff!” I stormed over to him and pulled the pads from his shoulders. 

“Who is my son?” He asked.

I bonked him with the baton.

“Hold up,” Lilli walked between us, bent down, and picked up a metal shiny thing from the ground. A key. It wasn’t that weird one, though, more like a small metal house key. “Where’d you find this?”

“I believe it fell out of the body armor I was fitting on myself.” Samuel answered. 

I pointed to the last red and blue kevlar football pad I was still struggling to hold up.

Lilli lifted it from my hands. “Jesus,” she mumbled, swirling it around in her hands, then looked into the lockers. “Hey, no way!”

“Huh?”

She tossed the pads onto the bench, reached over into the locker in front of her, letting me notice her, uh, the bruises she had on her shoulders. Were they new? After digging around for a while, she pulled out a faded blue baseball cap, shook some dust off of it, and pulled it over her head. “Was wondering where this went.”

“What is it?”

“Uh…” she took it off her head again, then smiled warmly as she showed it to me. “It’s something I got from New York. First day here.”

“In New York?”

“America.”

“Oh.”

“You two are so fascinating to be around. So much new terminology to observe! ” Samuel asked.

Lilli looked at him incredulously, then at me, then at her hands. Her face slowly started to soften as she looked between the cap and the key. “I...I’m not really sure what this thing is. This place.”

I winced. “Really? I mean, I figured out this place wasn’t normal around the time I stepped into it.”

She nodded, looked at the hat again, fastened it securely around her head, almost completely hiding her hair, and closed the key in the palm. “Feels real.”

I nodded.

She looked around the locker room, bounced the key in her hand, and walked to the wall next to the banged-up door, mumbling to herself, then turned to a small, hard-to-notice white locker in the corner with a brass plate on it. As me and Samuel walked over, she jammed the key in the locker handle, pulled it open, and stared inside. There was a small console there, with the only control seemingly being a large valve. It’s paint was rusted, cracked, and was still wriggling like everything else.

Lilli grabbed the valve, twisted it a little bit back and forth, making it wriggle and snap back as it’s hinge creaked.

“Think I should, like…” Lilli tapped the metal, and I watched the metal slightly reverb at her finger.

“I...I think that’s all we can do.”

Samuel nodded. “I’m excited to see what it does!”

Lilli nodded, grabbed the valve with both hands, and turned it to the left a few inches.

The room tilted with it.

“WOA-” I yelled, holding onto the door of the locker and feeling my throat clog up again. “OOOooooh God…”

Lilli looked around, watching a few loose pieces of ceiling tile and dust dangle above her. Samuel stood still, though his legs were a bit wobbly. I didn’t know if that was just him, or the dreamy effect, or just my vision swirling.

I swallowed in my throat again, trying to keep the acid from scorching the inside of my mouth. I tried to say something, but I just ended up gurgling silently.

Lilli turned it again, and the room rotated more and more. The ceiling grinded against something on the outside, displacing the tiles and grinding them into fine dust and chunks of asbestos. My inner gravity was being sent all over the place. I couldn’t stand on the floor anymore, as it was slowly becoming a wall, and I soon noticed that the only other floor I saw was the one far away, covered with wooden lockers and piles of previously-hooked football pads. I didn’t think they’d make good landing pads.

“Lil-” I screamed, trying to still get my footing as the room turned and turned and turned and turned. Everything was twisting in my vision, the walls were waving and dancing and the wood grain was swirling into spirals and galaxies. The paint on the walls was dripping down in strokes, and I felt my stomach turn into a whirlpool as I clung tighter and tighter to the hard metal locker door.

I felt a tight arm grab me around my chest, and another - Samuel - grab my waist.

“Jesus Christ, it’s a te-twenty fo...uh. You can make it.”

I groaned.

Lilli sighed, pulled me tighter, and wheezed. “How much do y-oh, God dammit, dude, let go!”

“I’m quite fine!” Samuel yelled.

“Fuck, alright.” I tried to look up. Lilli had one foot shoved inside the locker, firmly placed on the top next to the valve. The cracks in the wall - that were vibrating and pulsing like everything else - showed that the outside was pitch black. Not really - it was sort of like a swirling mass of black, and oh god I can't look at this any more I’m gonna throw up any minute now

I still looked, though. I swear I saw the blackness drip down.

It was dripping down.

It was forming large, solid black hands, with dull, thick fingers that twitched, snapped around, pointed at the three of us, and descended. Their fingers kept going in and out and twitching and I swear to God something was laughing from the darkness as the hands and the arms shot forward and clawed at the walls and I screamed. 

“LILLI!” I kicked her hanging leg, trying to get her attention. “TURN THE FUCKING THING!”

She looked up, just as the first arm was coiling back towards her head. I saw her mentally freeze, then, “HANG ON!”

She braced herself, twisted it as far as it could go, and the room immediately turned 90 degrees, and the ceiling was now the floor. All three of us slammed down, Lilli being turned painfully, while me and Samuel apparently dragged her down to the weak ceiling. The room turned to dust for a second as everything fell, including what remained of the monster - that’s all I could think of calling it. The arms were cut clean off, looking like solid mannequins that just sat there. All of the football equipment, the trophies, the first-aid kits, which there were apparently more than one, fell and tumbled to the ceiling.

I coughed, then coughed, then held my mouth closed and swallowed down my stomach’s contents again.

“Everyone okay?” I said, still trying to keep my voice from bubbling up and over my mouth.

“I feel wonderful!” Samuel chirped while face-down in a now-busted fluorescent light.

Lilli groaned, then pulled her leg out of the locker and hit it with her fist. I guess to set it. “Yep.”

I stood up slightly, rustled in the dust to find my baton, carefully picked it up, since it was laying next to a pile of broken glass and plastic, and sat next to the wall.

“You fine?” Lilli asked as she carefully stood up.

“Yeah, just…” I breathed in, out, in, and out again, contracted my stomach, and slowly stood up. Samuel twitched for a second, straightened his arms, bent them, and pushed himself up like he was being pulled by a string tied to his back. “I wanna go home.”

Me and Lilli walked over to the pile of black hands by the wall. I nudged one of them with my foot, and it rolled over, still frozen how it was before it...died, I guess.

“What are these?” I asked quietly.

Lilli stomped on one, and it shattered like a ceramic jar, spilling it’s black liquid guts everywhere.”Dead now.” she affirmed, wiping the black on her shoe against the ceiling tiles. 

I felt everything slowly fall on me, but I tried to stay stupid and not realize how screwed I was.

“Hm,” I heard Samuel behind us. He was staring at the door, which was still on the floor-ceiling and not the ceiling-floor. “I suppose those hands are what made these.” he reached up and poked the dents littering it’s metal surface.

“Shit,” Lilli crossed her arms. “It’s still up there? So…”

I looked around the ruined room. “Still no exits…” 

“You’re fuckin…” Lilli thought for a moment, then sneered. “Goddammit! We went through that for nothing!” In a fit of rage, she kicked one of the arms so hard that it instantly spread across the concrete wall, splattering everywhere. I saw the surface slightly bounce, like everything else when it was disturbed, but it kept...waving. Wriggling. The door got in on it, too, vibrating loudly against the metal frame, and the dents and metal scrapes jiggling in and out. It then slid down the wall, like a cartoon, landing at the ceiling-floor.

Lilli stared in disbelief for a second, then buried her face in her hands. “Oh my  _ God _ , I am so sick of this shit.”

“Well, this is all quite interesting!” Samuel stroked the new, clean door. “It seems we just have to find a wa-”

Lilli groaned. “Yeah, we get it, we figured out the dumb fucking door puzzle. Can you just shut up? I wanna get home.”

Samuel nodded, though his mask obscured any hurt feelings. Maybe that was too cruel to him/it…

Lilli threw open the door, revealing the same old concrete hallway from the start, though this time, it featured stairs going up. 

“Great. This should be out.” Lilli walked forward, ahead of us, and started climbing the stairs. I realized I should be following her - though, maybe not in her way - and climbed with her. Samuel wasn’t far behind.

The stairs didn’t seem to go up that much. Sure, they were steep, but the railings helped. Lilli was trudging up in silence, and I was mostly just trying to keep up.

At the top was a sloped opening, showing nothing but darkness in the distance. I held my baton tighter. Lilli mostly just stared into it before getting off the last step and walking in.

Her footsteps on cold concrete soon turned to the sound of feet on metal. I stopped, watching her get fainter, waiting to see what would happen. 

It was the inside of a stadium. Large, sloped stands that seemed to go on forever upwards, reaching into a tall, black sky. Lit by nothing.

In the middle was one of those MMA octagon, and a large square TV hovering over it.

The wall behind us closed up. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this marks the start of the hiatus. Hopefully only a few weeks, but I'm never really one to consider any kind of less-than-optimal outcomes.  
> Also, I don't know why, but as of late I got...like, an absolute shitton of hits. I really don't like bragging about them, or talking about hits at all, but for this fic it means a lot. This is a very personal project in a lot of ways, and I'm super happy that it's apparently gaining traction and hopefully resonating with people. I'm not sure how soon we'll update again, but people are always free to message me on tumblr or through email, (both of which are on my profile).


	11. Hurt Yourself

The sky above the arena was too vast, too dark. The cold, grey concrete that surrounded us sent chills down what was left of my backbone - the feeling of being closed in and trapped.The MMA octagon itself looked like a rusted chain-link prison of hell. The TV seemed to be hanging precariously from nothing, slowly rocking to and fro with quiet yet shrill metal creaks.

Lilli smiled smugly, stepping forward and pushing me and Sam out of the way.

“Yo, so this is the center of my mind, huh? Kinda…empty,” she snickered, mostly at nothing. Certainly not us. “Hey, dude, can’t you...get us out, now? I’m kinda bored.”

“Erm, that may be a bit of a...well, it might prove to be…” Samuel glanced downwards, and I could only think of the face he had underneath his mask. “I cannot, I don’t know how.”

“What?”

He put index fingers together in a tiny tent. “I-I only have the knowledge to facilitate the connection between the person and their innermost sanctuary, not-”

Lilli turned backwards and grabbed him by the lapel of his purple suit. “No, you get us back _now_!”

“Please! I-I, you must understand, my purpose is very, uh, straightforwar-”

“Get. Us. Home.”

“I don’t know how!”

“ _Shit!_ ” She groaned, letting go of Samuel with enough force that he stumbled backwards, to the ground, having to balance himself against the hard concrete wall he was thrown against. “I’m not gonna be stuck here forever with some piece-of shit…” She stepped away from him, eyes drifting and glancing at me in the process. “Hey, come on, don’t mope around! Look for an exit or-or something! Christ!”

I stood frozen as she stepped towards me. The disembodied lights casted her shadow in six or seven or eight directions, some of them seemingly homing in on me, putting her in silhouette and me in darkness.

The shoddy TV screen buzzed, screens filling with static, then color, then broken, glitched images of what felt like...memories. Incomplete, fuzzy, not mine.

Lilli’s perspective - shoving a dude against a wall after he grabbed her arm, turning around after a guy did something to her back and slapping him across the face. Something in an alley - it was horribly compressed and damaged, but all I could saw was her crying before busting someone across a dumpster wall. Shaved hair clumps. Black hair. Burning clothes, broken glasses.

Lilli backed away for a second, apparently in pain - clutching her head and wincing slightly. I stayed frozen. The screens kept rolling through that footage, and I started...I don’t know.

I didn’t say anything.

She looked up at the screen, still holding the sides of her temple. “H-hey! Shut that...who’s...shut that shit off!”

The sky seemed to shimmer.

The screens went wild with images - metal bands, city streets, women in what I guessed were Chinese clothing - all while static and speakers screeching with guitar chords and what sounded like metal scraping against metal.

The screen kept going, playing more video, sounds of yelling, glass shattering, dull punches against skin. Videos played of her putting kids in strangleholds - what looked like actual kids, with her tiny kid arms. Breaking a girl’s car window and grabbing hold of her hair, cutting out before anything happened. She threw a dude into the beach at night and pushed his head into the tide. I heard her laughing.

I saw visions of her kicking Raul over from a bike, him scrambling to pick up scraps of paper as they floated away in the wind, her laughing and tearing one up beneath her foot. Punching him straight in the neck, stepping on his foot, watching him come outside while she was perched on her bike only to attempt to run him over. Punching a dude in a hoodie in the chest and him swatting her away.

Then I saw me, in my nice girl shirt, being cornered by her in the hallway, ‘maybe I’ll just leave you alone’. Managing to cut me to the very bone. Me being pushed against the concrete wall I was still frozen against, crying. I saw her hand ball up into a fist.

Lilli was doubling over, shivering in what might’ve been anger or fear. “Shut that shit off already!”

The sky shimmered again, with unknown sources of light, but it began...bouncing. Making waves like an ocean, but one contained inside...a bottle, the bottom of a glass orb…

It began shaking and quivering, becoming more liquidy, thick and tar-like, the kind I’ve seen before. The entire span of the sky jolted to life, bouncing up and down and forming giant inverted tsunamis. The screen began scrolling through…every part of Lilli’s life, horrible scenes of her and other people, bloodshed, tears, anger. The chain that it was attached to shook with wild anger like a snake, the metal square TV twisted and bounced. The speakers yelled with the sounds of static and broken bass, and the screen became hundreds of times brighter, bolts of white static bursting from outside the metal contraption.

I could only imagine it was going to burst, and…

“Get down!” I screamed, jumping from my position on the wall, tackling her to the ground, trying to cover all I could to make sure all I could, eyes closed.

I heard the sound of glass bursting, and felt hot glass fragments hit my back and my arms, melting through my hoodie.

“Christ, get off…” Lilli twisted her body to shake me off, and I tumbled to the ground, looking up.

The sky was dripping black tar. Like rain.

“You’re...fucking heavy, dude,” she coughed, then looked behind her. “What the hell was...why’d you do that?”

I watched thick, glossy stalagmites drip from the sky. One looked like it was aiming dead center towards the middle of the MMA octagon.

Lilli wiped some of the black stuff from her jeans and skin, watching as it just smeared around and stuck harder.

“Lilli…”

She looked behind her, at the massive glob of black liquid touching down onto the concrete floor.

“What the hell is that?”

I remembered that same thick tar from my dream. The one that…

I shuffled back to the wall, and she did too.

**ᏞᎾᎾᏦ ᎪᏆ hᎬᏒ, bᏒᎾᏦᎬᏁ ᎪᏁᎠ sᏟᎪᏒᏒᎬᎠ**

The black shook and quivered, seperating from the long strand that brought it down and making it snap back to the sky above, horrifically fast.

**ᎳhᎾ mᎪᎠᎬ hᎬᏒ ᏆhᎥs ᎳᎪᎽ**

**ᎽᎾu, hᎬᏒ fᎥᏒsᏆ fᏒᎥᎬᏁᎠ?**

ᎳhᎪᏆ Ꭺ ᏢᎥᏆᎥfuᏞ ᏞᎥᏆᏆᏞᎬ bᎥᏆᏟh, ᎪᏁᎠ ᎽᎾu ᎠᎥᎠ ᏁᎾᏆhᎥᏁᎶ ᏆᎾ hᎬᏞᏢ

Lilli glanced at me, then at the sky, whatever was speaking in that dark tone. I kept silently sobbing, hot tears and my cold body.

**ᏟᎪᏁ’Ꮖ ᎽᎾu ᏞᎾᎾᏦ ᎥᏁᏆᎾ ᏆhᎬ fuᏆuᏒᎬ, huh**

**sᎬᎬ ᎳhᎪᏆ ᎽᎾuᏒ ᎪᏟᏆᎥᎾᏁs ᎳᎥᏞᏞ hᎪᏉᎬ ᎳᏒᎾuᎶhᏆ**

**ᎪᏞᎾᏁᎬ, ᎪbᎪᏁᎠᎾᏁᎬᎠ, ᎪᏞᏞ ᎾᏆhᎬᏒs ᏢushᎬᎠ ᎪᎳᎪᎽ**

**ᏉᎥᎾᏞᎬᏁᏟᎬ ᎳᎥᏆhᎾuᏆ ᏟᎬssᎪᏆᎥᎾᏁ**

**ᏁᎾ fᎾᏒᎬsᎥᎶhᏆ fᎾᏒ ᏆhᎬ ᎬᏁᎠ**

Lilli slowly pushed herself up as the blob began to...take shape…

It looked like a giant, herculanean woman, her body rippling with more muscles than anyone would ever have, two long arms that stretched down to her legs, and standing on two thin needles, bent forwards and backwards like a deer’s forelegs. The only face it had was on a tiny, disproportionate head - two long, red X’s and a jagged mouth, a kind of sick reproduction of a face.

Lilli choken on her own words.

**ᎠᎾᏁ'Ꮖ ᎽᎾu sᎬᎬ ᎳhᎪᏆ ᎽᎾuᏒ ᎪᏁᎶᎬᏒ's ᏟᎪusᎬᎠ**

**ᏆhᎥs Ꭵs ᎳhᎾ ᎽᎾu ᎪᏒᎬ, ᎳhᎾ ᎽᎾu hᎪᏉᎬ bᎬᎬᏁ, ᎪᏁᎠ ᎳhᎾ ᎽᎾu ᎳᎥᏞᏞ ᎪᏞᎳᎪᎽs bᎬ**

“Shut up! You don’t-!”

The giant beast picked up one of the chain link walls almost effortlessly, pulling it free from its foundation, and threw it at the two of us, sparking as it collided with the concrete ground.

**Ꭵ Ꭺm Ꭺ mᎾᏁsᏆᎬᏒ**

Lilli dodged out of the way in time, falling on her shoulder and tumbling right in front of me.

She stood up from her slumped position, and looked at me.

I was still frozen with absolute shock. Something was burning in my chest.

She pulled her knife from her belt, flicked it open, and stood up fully, though she was stumbling.

“I don’t give a shit what kind of...part of me you are, whatever…” She dragged the knife across her fingers. “If you’re really me, you’d come out and kick the shit outta me instead of saying how much I suck!”

The monster...whatever it was...laughed. Fire and smoke came fuming from its mouth. It tore off another side of the octagon and threw it at the two of us - seemingly as a distraction, since it broke and crumpled to the floor directly underneath it, and it began to sprint towards the two of us. It’s skin became baked in fire, red-hot flames that cloaked its fists and illuminated the dark stadium.

I closed my eyes and covered my face as the heat grew closer, closer…

sᴛᴏᴘ ᴛʜɪs!

My fingers hooked around my face, almost like they were twitching on their own, but...I didn’t think I had to worry about that for much longer, and everything began to feel much more...quiet.

I opened my eyes and saw the monster standing over Lilli, triumphantly. She was splayed out on her back, reaching towards a knife, scorch marks on the concrete floor surrounding her. The monster laughed and pulled back a fist, aimed directly at her head.  

**mᎽ ᏆᎥmᎬ ᏁᎾᎳ, bᎥᏆᏟh**

She was about to die.

I felt springs in my feet, a kind of bolt of energy that I had never felt before. Why was I running? Why was I tripping over my shoelaces and the cold concrete to reach her? Why was I ducking over her and pushing her out of the way?

It wasn’t until I saw the fist poised above me that my mind caught up with me.

I was going to die for a girl that, genuinely, absolutely, didn’t care about me. I keep doing this shit, and for what? Why am I ducking like this?

The thing laughed, heat coursing through it’s fingertips and making them glow red.

I felt the heat inches from my face, yelling from Lilli,  nothing from Samuel, and I felt myself go dark.

ᴍᴀɴ, ɪ'ᴠᴇ ʙᴇᴇɴ ᴡᴀɪᴛɪɴɢ ᴀ ʟᴏɴɢ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ғᴏʀ ᴛʜɪs…

The voice rang inside my head for a long time. Not unlike my own, one with...confidence. Pride. A kind of anger that fueled itself.

The fist came down and I rolled to the left, like a soldier dodging rubble. I started to feel like...I was awake.

The monster leered at me as Lilli tried to regain her footing, picking up her knife. I slowly backed away, but it was...too huge. I was…

Something...

The bubbling in my stomach began to grow uncontrollable.

My abdomen grew heavy and hot, upset enough that I had to curl inwards to try and stop whatever wanted to come up by clogging my intestines. It didn't work. Thick and smooth vomit flowed up my throat, and, in an effort to keep it from breaching, I clenched my fist in front of my mouth. It still gave way. But this time it felt...horrific. Way more horrible than usual.

My eyes lazed downwards. My skin was stained with black liquid, a slime that felt like it was touching and gripping at my skin as I tried to shake it off, impossibly warm, with pulsing spikes of temperature that made it feel alive.

I remember this.

ʜᴏᴡ ʟᴏɴɢ ʜᴀs ᴛʜɪs ʙᴇᴇɴ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴀᴋɪɴɢ, ʜᴜʜ? ʏᴏᴜ ғɪɴᴀʟʟʏ ᴄᴏᴍɪɴɢ ᴛᴏ ʏᴏᴜʀ sᴇɴsᴇs ᴏʀ ᴡʜᴀᴛ?

I coughed up more. “No, I…”

 

The muscles in my legs gave way. More black blood flowed from my mouth, growing into puddles on the turf. I felt like my body was being...drained. Leached of absolutely everything. I tried to muster the energy to pull myself from the ground, but only succeeded in sitting upright, motionless, and weak in the eyes of the monster in front of me.

ᴡʜʏ ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴋᴇᴇᴘ ᴛʜɪɴᴋɪɴɢ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴀᴛᴇ ᴘʟᴀʏɪɴɢ ʜᴇʀᴏ? ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴅɪᴅ ʏᴏᴜ ᴅᴏ ᴊᴜsᴛ ɴᴏᴡ? ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴅɪᴅ ʏᴏᴜ ᴅᴏ ғɪᴠᴇ ᴍᴏɴᴛʜs ᴀɢᴏ?

ᴡʜʏ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴋᴇᴇᴘ ғɪɢʜᴛɪɴɢ ʙᴀᴄᴋ? ʏᴏᴜ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ʏᴏᴜ ᴄᴀɴ, ʀɪɢʜᴛ?

A...twinge.

Something snapped in my chest, a painful and quick snap of pain that rippled through my heart, then another, until every beat of my heart signaled another wave of searing blood. I felt like I was having a heart attack, but, every time my heart pumped I saw visions of deep red blood that flooded my veins, cleansing stains of deep black inside. My nerves tingled with fear and anticipation, electric shocks that complimented the heat, electrocuting my brain until I couldn't bear to think about anything or anyone. Within a matter of seconds, my entire body was consumed with horrific pain, causing my fingers to twitch upwards, and my eyes to rip open, but I felt absolutely numb.

My brain split open, and I saw myself from every angle absolutely possible, my entire life passing by my brain in war newsreels with burning videotape, nightmares of bathrooms and battlefields and voids. Every time I was abused, choked, treated as a...thing. The last of the black blood flowed from my lips in thin strands.

I saw vines rip themselves from the concrete underneath, wrap themselves around my wrists, and twist and bleed me with thorns until my skin and flesh splintered and cracked into millions of porcelain pieces. I suddenly felt all the pain, every last sensation,  that I had missed. Shocks and burns and what felt like the sheer power of hatred crushing me, tearing my senses and body apart, and I let out a pained scream that scorched my throat, the sound tearing off porcelain flesh from inside.

sᴛᴀɴᴅ ᴜᴘ, ᴀɴᴅ sʜᴇᴅ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴀsᴋ ᴏғ ɪɴᴅɪғғᴇʀᴇɴᴄᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ᴘᴀɪɴ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴇʀᴇ ғᴏʀᴄᴇᴅ ɪɴᴛᴏ!

My fingers grasped my head, two palms over my eyes, like it was going to explode, like my brain itself was on the verge of turning into shrapnel. They dug into my scalp, piercing through flesh like paper, exposing black blood that flowed out like faucets.

All the anger and spite that had been brewing inside of me…I felt it all. Rippling through my nails, piercing my skull. I felt it pulse down into my muscles, effortlessly letting me stand up. My hands went limp, dragging my arms down into a trap of gravity and creating two long claw-marks through both of my eyes.  I felt the ripples of roots and vines under my feet, the black blood seeping into the concrete and evaporating into nothing.

ʙᴀʟʟ ʏᴏᴜʀ ғɪsᴛs! sᴄʀᴇᴀᴍ! ᴋᴇᴇᴘ ᴘᴜɴᴄʜɪɴɢ ᴀɴᴅ ᴋɪᴄᴋɪɴɢ ᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴏsᴇ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʜᴀᴛᴇ! sᴜʀᴠɪᴠᴇ ᴛʜʀᴏᴜɢʜ ᴅᴇғɪᴀɴᴄᴇ! ʟɪᴠᴇ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴅʀᴇᴀᴍs, ᴀɴᴅ ᴋɪʟʟ ʏᴏᴜʀ ɴɪɢʜᴛᴍᴀʀᴇs!

A bloodied smile twitched across my face as I reached up and grasped the ceramic surrounding my mouth.

ᴛʜɪs ʜᴀs ɢᴏɴᴇ ᴏɴ ғᴏʀ ʟᴏɴɢ ᴇɴᴏᴜɢʜ, ʜᴀsɴ'ᴛ ɪᴛ? sᴀʏ ɪᴛ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴍᴇ, ɴᴏᴡ…

[Ｉ ＡＭ ＴＨＯＵ， ＡＮＤ ＴＨＯＵ ＡＲＴ Ｉ！](https://aether-realm.bandcamp.com/album/tarot-instrumental)

I felt my entire face become blood, tar, and then I felt cold, light fire dance across my skin, solidifying my skin and forming it again. I snapped back into reality, and saw that my entire body was enveloped in this kind of...white, glowing fire, thinly enveloping the sleeves of my hoodie and my thin fingers.

My vision became...split, somehow, like…

I saw myself, I saw everything at once. I saw me covered by fire, the monster staring at me in confusion, Lilli against the floor, Samuel recovering, searching for...something behind him, oblivious to what was going on. I saw an infinite forest, trees the size of mountains, flowers, roses with thorns the size of knives.

Behind me, I saw my…

He was about the same size as me, maybe taller, a thin, spindly figure the color of clouds on a spring day, and bright green lines that flowed and winded around his figure. On his chest was a bright purple flower that shimmered in nonexistent light, with vines that wrapped around his shoulders like bandoleers. Another flower bloomed on his black - bright purple petals that petered out like the wings of a beetle. His head was implike, two narrow, round eyes that shimmered with mischievousness, and two pointed horns that twisted around his forehead. The feature I stared at the most was his small smile, a grin brimming with pointed teeth in a smirk of knowing and planned retribution.

I looked at my fingers, and looked at his fingers - two sharp, pointed digits and a thumb. But I saw them like...my own. I saw everything through his eyes, and he saw mine.

I pulled my hands into fists, and a kind of...weird, but appreciated information flooded my mind. I felt all my negativity...my hatred, my lonliness...it faded into nothingness as I looked at my Persona behind me.

“I’m…with you, Puck.”

Puck cackled, eying the monster with his claws at the ready.

The monster person, seemingly having its bearings in order, and lunged at the two of us, which I...saw in advance, somehow, even though…

I sidestepped it’s needle legs, and struck forward at nothing, though I saw Puck’s fist hit straight forward at the monster’s neck, and I felt the surge energy course through me, it’s porcelian skin crumpling beneath my...Puck’s fist. He dug into the monster’s muscled chest with his thin, needle-like legs, creating two long crevices, and I began punching it’s head in, right in between the two scar-like X’s it called eyes.

The monster reeled back, but Puck and I kept punching into her face, and I felt more and more of the tar like substance underneath her skin.

“Ah, hello!” Samuel’s voiced pierced my ears, bringing me back down to earth, apparently breaking my concentration. “Sorry about that delay, I felt the need to gather my thoughts. What did I miss?”

His mask slowly turned upwards, until he saw Puck staring at him in confusion, and the monster starting to grab the air around it.

“Oh, dear.”

I tried to push him away, but I felt a vice grip around my abdomen. I got distracted. I saw Puck get lifted from his clutch on the monster, and through his eyes I saw the absolute wreck I made of her face - broken, splintered, black ooze flowing freely out like a waterfall of oil.

She lifted Puck up and squeezed her hot fingers, and I felt the vice on my abdomen grow tighter, my flesh burning underneath my hoodie and shirt in a way that it absolutely shouldn’t, defying _everything_. I felt my skin curdle under the heat, reaching my flesh and my veins, boiling whatever actual blood I had in me.

I felt the sensation of being lifted up in the air, though my feet remained on the ground. My guts lurched up inside me. I saw, through Puck’s eyes, the monster’s jagged, broken face, cracks forming a larger, more twisted smile, drooling with black spit.

He was being lifted up, his barklike white skin burning, and before I knew it he was thrown to the ground with a massive, horrible amount of force.

And then I felt my spine buckle beneath me, and I was pushed to the ground by a phantom force that crushed my whole body. I was pushed against the concrete, face first, covered in absolute pain from the hard, grey, cold concrete hitting my ribs and nose and face with the force of what felt like a truck.

The shock reverberated through my bones, my spine, and I felt a trickle of warm, red blood from my crushed nose. My mind went absolutely cold, but the whiplash was keeping me painfully awake.

I tried to stand up, groaning. Puck was...gone. What the hell was I doing?

I looked up, trying to re-connect, even though I still was painfully aware that I had no idea what to do.

I saw the monster’s needle-like leg poised over him, glowing red-hot, trying to say something that was obscured by the damage to her face, and then the burning needle shot through the two of us.

It felt like it was searing my insides shut - it hurt more than anything that’s ever happened to me. I didn’t see it on my own body, but every time I almost passed out from the horrible, burning pain, I saw Puck’s writhing body with the giant spike through him, glowing red and leaking black. My painful tears were bursting into steam from my face.

The pain stopped, and I was sure I was dead, until the world snapped back into my mind. The monster removed her leg from Puck’s torso, him laying...horribly limp on the cold floor.

I tried to see through his eyes again, and after a migraine-inducing amount of...something...I saw him looking at Lilli, recovering from her episode against the side of the wall, and the monster slowly approaching her.

It tried to say something, but only produced horrible black spittle. She was trying to figure out what was going on. I didn’t blame her. I felt like I had every idea of what I was doing, and was trying hard at the same time to repress every part of me that was telling myself how fucking unreal this entire situation was.

The monster slowly approached her, and raised her fist, as if to slam her into the wall and...almost surely crushing her. I was watching her die right before my eyes.

I reached my hand out, almost out of...helplessness. I saw Puck do the same, but his shot out with more authority. I felt his smile burst out again.

The concrete under Lilli’s feet burst out from under her, creating a spray of dust and rocks, as a giant...purple...flower sprouted from under her feet, with thick, veiny petals that seemed as strong as steel. It budded up, with Lilli inside, just as the monster struck the side of the flower, making its fist stop completely.

It tried again, and again, until it just started wailing on the flower with heat-enhanced fists. Nothing got through.

“You can _do that_?”

Puck backflipped up to a standing, well, floating position, then looked back at me and cackled, before, as if to say ‘that’s not all’, he snapped his fingers.

A massive tangle of vines and thorns erupted from the wall above Lilli’s flower-shield-thing, just as the monster stopped it’s barrage, aimed directly at its chest. The twisting spire broke straight through its chest, clean through the other side and sending blood and ceramic all over the grey floor. It cried out in pain, trying to claw the vines out, or maybe just writhing in pain.

I felt something...draining inside me, though. Like my mind was leaving me faster and faster. I tried to...stop thinking. I can’t think in a fight, especially when I don’t know how I’m fighting. The flower bubble suddenly and rapidly dissipated, and Lilli, probably still confused by what was happening, looked up at the massive, writhing mass of vines, and wisely ran my way.

I felt someone - probably Samuel, grab me by the arm and help me up, letting me stand on my shaky feet, and Lilli stumbled my way, still clutching her knife.

“What the fuck is that?!” she yelled, pointing at Puck. “‘Who the hell _are_ you?”

“I-I’ll explain...I don’t know.”

I let Puck dissolve the vine spear, and the monster clutched the gaping hole left in its chest, blood seeping out of it.

Lilli looked back at the carnage. “Fuck, fine, it’s working.”

“So the big person isn’t our friend? What about the little imp-like being?”

“Christ,” she groaned, swiping Samuel off my arm. “Shouldn’t _you_ know?”

“I don’t, sadly. This is all very new to me. It’s exciting!”

Puck delivered a sharp kick to the monster’s jaw, and, still fairly disorientated, it tried to swipe the air around it, leaving flamed aftertrials.

“Ah, it seems to be knocking on death’s door.”

Sam was right. It had two gaping holes in it now - it’s chest and it’s face - and it was rapidly losing blood and flakes from its porcelain skin.

“Hm, it’s still kicking...perhaps a way to obliterate it completely? Do you have something like that at your disposal?”

I thought for a second as Puck kept delivering swift, almost sadistic kicks at the monster’s body, making a fair amount of dents, and I tried to focus on...whatever the hell I had to focus on. I saw Puck’s eyes, the monster close up, the cold concrete ground…

I made the vine come out of nowhere, and the giant flower...can I just...is it just limited to plant life? No guns? No...howitzers?

I had an idea.

“Puck!” I yelled, for almost no reason, maybe to just get his attention. I felt our minds re-connect, and for a split-second I saw a network of vines and roots and flowers underneath the walls and floor, green outlines that shone brightly and interconnecting like wires. I clawed my fingers, trying to mimic his hand motions, imagining...what I exactly wanted to happen…

Small, flower-dotted roots sprouted from underneath the concrete, the size of my wrist, wrapping around the monster’s thin legs, effectively trapping it in place. Small thorns dug into her ceramic skin. It looked down, still clutching the hole, trying to free itself.

I felt a smirk grow on my face, and a nostalgic feeling washed over me - one that I tried to suppress for so long, and one that Puck was helping me rediscover.

“Hey!”

The monster stared at me and sneered. I saw its legs start to burn, and the heat began to destroy the vines.

It didn’t anticipate what was coming, though.

The wall it was confined near started shaking and bouncing, before erupting in a spray of concrete and rebar, signaling the strike of a gigantic tree trunk, the size of a bus, that shot as fast as a artillery shell right through the monster. The trunk ruptured the beast entirely, causing it to explode in a burst of blood and glasslike skin, shooting black tar straight forward in a geyser that stained the concrete floor and the octagon arena, and a cloud of dust stood where the beast once struggled - along with its legs.

I replayed the eruption of blood several times in my head as I grinned, ignoring my brown skin rapidly growing pale and losing it’s healthy tone.

“Holy shit.”

“Haha...yeah...holy…”

I felt my mind fry into nothingness, and my eyes went black.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, Christ, this took me a bit to finish. I had about three revisions of this to go through, and all things considered it took me...about a year to get all three of them done. But it's over now! I can finally move past my pre-written crap and start working on this full-time.
> 
> Honestly, most of the hiatus was due to writer's block, both because of some stuff regarding both me and my artist and that good ol'-fashioned depression. It's also because...I mean, like I said, I had to write and re-write this particular fight at least three times, and by the end it was just dreadful. I ended up having to just sit down and write as I watched Monster Factory and tell myself that I had to have it done before the 20 minutes were over.
> 
> This is my first time writing a fight scene, so I'm...pretty curious as how it turned out. Of course, I have my own bias, so feel free to let me know.
> 
> tumblr: http://waggletonpt.tumblr.com  
> email: waggletonpt@gmail.com


	12. Go Home

I woke up and I smelled deoderant...a bad one. It smothered me. I hated that feeling.

Lilli was...holding me. For some reason. Not very well. My hand was tucked behind her neck, and my hurting one was just dangling. I saw black and grey, white, and then dark purple and low lights. I was...back in the real world. I think. I was in the theater.

My eyes turned off, turned on again, and I was in one of the seats. The first thing I saw was the giant machine that made me afraid. I tried to tuck my head into my knees like I usually did, but I just smelled sweat and blood and that black ink. I wanted to throw up.

Lilli was staring at me, pulling open my eye. Her hair was a mess - more so than usual. She had a long gash on her eye, and her shoulder was purple and black. 

I felt like shit. My sides were still tough and raw, and the center of my stomach felt like it was on fire. My head was spinning every way possible, and it hurt.

I poked her hand away with my fine arm. She stopped.

“How bad are you?”

I didn’t answer. My throat felt clogged by my own throat. 

“Hey, you okay? Feeling alright?”

“How’d I do?”

“Eh?”

I tried to laugh, but it felt like I’d just spit up blood and bile. “With the...uh...punching...Persona?”

“The fuck are you talking about?”

“I think I’m dying…”

“You’re fine, shut up.”

She tried to pull me up, but it was the bad arm. I yelped.

“You’re...fuck. Can you stand?”

“Do you need any help?”

I shook my head. I felt like I was in a car accident, or I fell off a building...I felt flat. And compressed. I just felt...in so much pain that I was still and calm. I couldn’t focus on anything. My bones were crunched and my nerves were tingling and yelling. One of my arms felt broken, I guess from the big crunch that happened.

“Do you know what the fuck that was?”

“What what, the fuck? What fuck?”

She exhaled, and laid on the stage next to me. “The goddamn monster thing.”

“It’s dead now.”

“Yeah, yeah, ‘bout that…” she looked upwards. “I dunno if you saw it, but when you killed that...thing, it, it made me feel weird. Like...something…” 

The air went silent as she searched for words.

“Like,  _ poof _ , I was gone. I think. But...Christ. I really was acting pretty retarded, huh?”

I studied the symbols on the theater roof.

“Like, all that bullshit with Raul and Max and...you, now, I guess. You never saw the half of it, ‘course, but...god, I’m such a piece of shit.” Lilli did a kind of bored, dry laugh, before going silent again. “I...you know, I don’t know why they’ve stuck with me for as long as they did, like, shit, I guess I gave them every reason for them to fuck off. They still…”

I looked over and saw Samuel staring at that big, horrible machine, ignoring us.

“Hey, Julie?”

“Huh.”

“I’m sorry that your first impression was, just, me trying to be...me...shit,” she stopped, pulled herself up painfully from the ground, and stared ahead at the rows and rows of seats.

“Here,” she gently pushed me up over myself, like I was somewhat sitting, and tossed me my hoodie, with all the marks and tiny cuts from the glass shards still in the back.

I tugged the sleeve over the bad arm as carefully as I could, and Lilli pulled my other through the next sleeve, before stepping off the stage and staggering from the fall.

“Are you just...are you gonna leave me here?”

She eyed me, and eyed the elevator, then Samuel.

After a long, painful process, I was riding Lilli piggyback. Her back was rubbing against my burn, and almost every step sent shock waves of pain through my body, and I was..I was crying. A small bit. A tiny bit. She didn’t notice. I hope.

I had one of my arms around her neck. She was carefully holding my legs. It felt awkward as hell.

We went into the elevator, and I pressed one of the buttons with my foot. 

“Why did you...do all that?” She asked softly. She looked confused and scared - her eyes were wide, not looking at me.

“Huh?”

“The...that fucking alien thing…”

“His name is Puck.”

“He has a  _ name _ ?!”

“Uh...I guess…”

“What the hell is it, then?”

I looked ahead at the green elevator walls, then watched the door open up, showing the dark lobby.

“I don’t know.”

“Persona? You said it earlier, right? The fuck is it?”

“I-I don’t know…”

I wiped my eye with a bent wrist. 

“God, you’re something else...some sci-fi shit, this and the theater thing...fucking Samuel asshole…”

She nudged the door open with her legs. It was orange outside. Sunset. I guess. Only a few people were outside on the street - nobody noticed us. A man was sweeping the porch of the tiny antique shop, A few couples were outside the cafe, and seagulls were still squawking. I heard a few boat bells from far away. We walked down the street, my arm hurting and my chest burning with every chest. I didn’t say anything.

“Thanks for all that stuff, by the way.”

“It’s alright.”

She went quiet. We walked off of Main Street and passed the ferry station, then passed the park. I think we were going back to the school.

“I-I live...uh...on the, uh, the shore…”

“You live at the hotel?”

“No, no...what?”

“The hotel on the beach.”

“No, the long one?”

She paused for a bit, shuffling me back up against her. I felt my burn flare up again. “Longshore Drive?”

“Yeah...sorry…”

She cracked her neck. “Man, you’re all kinds of messed up right now. It’s alright.”

“I’m not heavy, right?”

“I could throw you if I wanted.”

“O-Okay.”

“Does it hurt a lot? I could take you to me and Raul’s house.”

“You live together?”

“No, fuck no. It’s a half-a-double...like, two houses in one. But his brother is a nurse and his mom and dad, uh, he doesn’t live with ‘em, but they’re doctors.”

“Oh...no, I’m okay.”

My eyes and my head were getting...heavy. Hard for me to even look around. We were walking up a hill - really the only one in town, from what I’ve seen - and I saw a big, swollen, dark cloud hanging over us, slowly floating forwards. 

“Shit. Gotta get you home faster.”

I blinked slowly a few times, each one making me more tired. We cut through a playground attached to a large house, jaywalked, jaywalked some more, then we turned a corner and we were on Rowan’s street - with Rowan’s house in the distance. The sky was a dark purple. Grasshoppers were hissing.

We climbed up the steps to Rowan’s sunroom. His car was in the driveway. I had forgotten my bike. Shit.

Lilli let go of my ankle just to jostle with the door until it came open. The moment we stepped inside, my anxiety began racing. I realized that...I looked like I had got run over by a truck, and I felt like it, and I hadn’t done  _ anything _ to contact him - not that he’d even believe me if I were to explain why…

Lilli elbowed the doorbell once, then a few times, and I saw Rowan’s wide figure come to the door - rushing, at first, then stopping at the peephole, elbows dropping, then opening the door slowly. 

“Where in the  _ hell _ have you been?” he sized me up, then glared at Lilli, then ushered the two of us inside. “And who the hell are you? Jesus, you look terrible!”

“I’m, my name’s Lilli,” she grunted as she tried to let me off her back without making me fall. I ended up standing on the second step of the staircase and had to slowly walk down. “I’m, uh, I’m her friend at school.”

“Uh-huh. What the hell were you doing? Is that...what happened to your nose?”

I poked at it. It felt tough and sore, and somewhat...broken. There was a slightly warm patch of blood underneath it.

“We, we were out, like, we were in that shopping plaza and she…” Lilli started, but fumbled a bit. “It was the boardwalk, she fell off-”

“You fell off the side? That’s a fifteen foot drop! How’re you-”

“N-no, she fell off a rock, on the beach, under the boardwalk, uh-”

“Why were you under the boardwalk? You know, no, this isn’t working. Julie, what happened?”

I shrunk into my hoodie, still hurting a fair hell of a lot, and tried to avoid eye contact with anyone, including the picture of a puppy on the wall.

Rowan shook his head. “Liili, right? I’m not in the mood to do a cross-reference tonight. Do you want me to call your mom and dad and get them to pick you up?”

“Ah, no, I got a, I live ‘round here, down the street a little. I can make it.”

“Alright, I suppose. Stay safe, it’s going to rain soon.”

“Yeah,” she pulled up her jacket’s hood, and made her way towards the door. “Hey, I’ll text you soon.”

I nodded, and the door shut loudly, sending a little bit of noise around the horribly silent house.

“Can you tell me what happened now? Where even were you? I tried to call you three times and it didn’t even send me to voice mail.”

I leaned back against the bannister, before jumping back from the sudden pain from my spine.

“It wasn’t another person, was it?”

“No.”

He shook his head, looking more dissapointed and angry in me then I’ve ever seen him be. “You know about what happened in the park yesterday, right? They still haven’t caught whoever did it. You weren’t at the park, right? Nobody snuck up on you?” 

“No, it was just an accident…”

“An accident left you looking like that?” his face soured, and he glanced towards my hands. “It wasn’t anything like…”

“No. No, no, it was just an accident.”

“Dammit, alright,” he made a slow groaning sound from his throat. “Are you going to tell me what happened  _ right now _ or  _ later _ ?”

I looked at the floor. “Later.”

“I...alright. I won’t have you call your mom tonight. Just, go to bed for now, I guess.”

I tried to meek out an ‘okay’, but just made a noise, and slowly climbed up the stairs.

Rowan was telling the truth. The first thing I saw when I stumbled into my room was a mirror fit for someone taller than me, wooden framed, apparently able to swivel at it’s middle.

I just wanted to go to bed. I was tired of this, and my body aching didn’t help.

I sat on my bed and pulled off my shirt. I don’t know why. My chest was still burning, and...I thought that hoodie would give it a cushion, or...something, now that I think about it…

I pressed the skin on my stomach, winced at the small spikes of pain, pulled at my bra’s elastic, then unhooked it just to stop the feeling of it pressing down on my skin. It started to feel like it was...breathing again. I stared at my stomach, then traced the large bruise from my hip to my breasts with my finger, the hole of cauterized flesh below my midsection, picking at the bits of crystalized gore that stuck to it. It...wasn’t hurting anymore. It only came to life when I poked it with my fingernail, which I did a few times just to be sure…

Everything fucking hurt.

I stared at the floor. I saw a trail of blood slowly flow down my arm. I felt until it hurt, clasped my hand over the wound that opened up, and pulled myself from the bed, which is probably stained by now.

I thought I had bandages in my dressers. I should probably patch myself up by now. I don’t know how. I had those SSRIs in my bag. My mom didn’t want me to take them. It was tempting.

I ended up staring at myself in the mirror when I tried to walk to the drawer.

Jesus Christ.

That scar. The bruises on my chest and my stomach, the long burn marks on my breast, and the bottle-sized one on my spine, all the dried blood and my eye that was about to turn black, my purple nose, and the fact that my lip had some blood crusted on it…my ribs felt cracked. Every time I tried to turn and get a look at my sides, my spine felt like it would snap. My breasts and my chest and arms felt thick and sore, and my heart still was burning, not like acid reflux, but...like there were embers inside of it.

The scar and all the little cuts on my body...they felt rough. Cauterized. They were permanent. I picked at the one on the back of my hand and let a tiny little speck of bloodied crystallized flesh come off. 

I started crying and I didn’t know why.

I didn’t deserve these. I deserved some, not these. Not the giant gash, not the black eye, not the millions of flaymarks on my back that would make everyone think I was being punished or beaten or something that hadn’t happened yet. I couldn’t tell anyone. I couldn’t show anyone. I wanted to go to the beach, I wanted to find someone to…

They’d take one look at me and shake their heads.

I stared at my broken eyes in the mirror, then the mirror, then my chest wound, then the mirror, then the blood on my arm, then the mirror.

I grabbed that mirror with both hands, grasping it so tight that I felt it splinter and the glass crack underneath, digging my fingers into the small daggers, letting all the blood in my fucking body drip and flow down and just completely ruin this fucking thing, and I beat it against hte godadamn wall again and again and again until it broke in two, and then I let it fall to the floor like a dead body before I started fucking  _ crushing _ it with my foot until my soles were covered in shards and blood was fucking  _ everywhere goddamned everywhere  _ but then i realized that the mirror was about to fall after i kicked the stand and tried to scream so i held it up before it fell down and set it right again

God dammit.

I pried my eyes away from the mirror, leaned on the dresser, and let my tears run dry, not trying to think about anything. At all. I put on a long t-shirt, trying not to upset my gash, opened another drawer, found a small pack of bandages and my box of Zanital, still unopened, and sat down on the beanbag. 

I had to take off my shirt again. Idiot.

The process was...slow. The box of bandages was of different sizes, but most of them were small. I had already used up all the large squares a long time ago. They were camo, specifically American digital forest camoflauge for the National Guard, so it made me feel a bit better. Not much. I still wanted to die. I didn’t know what to do with the large gash, but it didn’t hurt. I just wanted to stop the bleeding. It worked.

I pulled my shirt back on, put the box of bandages away in  more accessible place, and looked at the newly-arrived dusk outside, with all the lights of the town slowly coming on as the minutes ticked by. The air got cold. I closed the window. 

Someone knocked.

I didn’t move.

I heard the door creak open. I was used to that. Knocking, opening anyway.

“Julie?” Rowan called.

“Yeah?”

“I, uh, you’re not really mad at me, are you? I’m sorry if I got a bit upset earlier tonight.”

I paused. “You got upset?”

“Heh, ah, no. I guess I didn’t. I felt it, but I didn’t show it.”

I ran my finger over the cold wood underneath the windowsill.

“You’re fine, right? I have a first-aid kit. I think you’ll need that in the morning for your eye.”

“It’s o-okay. I just fell.”

“I believe you…” the door opened a bit more, and I tried to look more open by turning around. “I’m also sorry that I kind of turned that into an interrogation. It’s the lawyer in me. Sorry.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s, well, it’s just this is the first time I’ve had to...nevermind. I think that’s obvious.”

“Be a parent?”

“You could say that. Because that’s what I was trying to say.”

I stayed silent as I tried to wrap my head around that.

“Do you wanna go grocery shopping with me tomorrow? I think we could stop somewhere and get some things to put in your room.” 

I picked some blood off my lip with my teeth, then smiled a little bit. “I’m fine right now. I like the mirror.” I lied.

He smiled a bit more. “That was your mom’s, back in high school. When she moved out I bought it from her family at a yard sale. I thought it’d be, well...not nostalgic for you.”

I looked at the mirror. It was just white weathered wood and metal hinges. It didn’t look like something my mom would own. Nowadays it’d be handcrafted, bought from an art fair, have little woodburned flowers and vines and stuff, and would, all-in-all, be much more cuter.

“I think I should let you get some sleep. If you start hurting again, let me know.”

It hurts now. “Okay. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

The door closed. I wasted no time in turning off the lights, the ceiling fan, popping a Zanital from it’s plastic tab, breaking the tablet in half, and swallowing them both one at a time.

I fell asleep soon after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing muchto say except I'm uploading this at work and I really hope the scene with Julie in her bedroom doesn't come off as "non-female-writer-writing-a-female-character.txt'!


	13. The Weekend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY QUICK NOTE (11/13/17): For whatever reason (apparently a glitch with my in-text music linking), about half of Chapter 11 was cut out, including the entirity of the fight scene and the revelation of Julie's Persona. I didn't even notice this until now, so if you could check back that'd be great! I'm sorry!

 I woke up feeling surprisingly...not in pain. Unbroken. Refreshed.

Then I felt the hospital smock and the velvet fabric and the cold air, and I felt worse than ever.

“It seems you’re awake, in more ways than one.”

I didn’t even give Igor the benefit of looking at me. I just rolled over and stared into the creases of the velvet-lined couch until he went away.

“My dear, you should feel proud. You’ve accomplished an amazing feat that very, very few can claim as their own.”

I didn’t move.

“The awakening of your Persona - Puck, the archetypal Fool, the servant of the king of the wilds - is the most spectacular kind of graduation. Now should be a time of celebration and perseverance.”

.”I just...I don’t know what’s going on, okay? I’m...I’m scared about it.”

“Fear is expected, but you will soon gain the strength to overcome it. Having harnessed your Persona, you now have the capability to disown the mask you wear, letting your true self shine forth. Eventually, the world will become a much less frightening place.”

I tried not to respond.

“Master, if I may…”

“Yes, Boris?”

“Perhaps this girl isn’t a good fit for…”

“Hush, now. I will not have negativity. She will grow into the potential she has.”

“I’m r _ight here._ ”

I felt the air grow thinner than it already was.

“As for the next step in your road to recovery...as one of the chosen few of the Fool arcana, you have the magnificent ability to form bonds with others. Reach out to the forgotten and broken, and raise them up as you’ve done yourself. The more true bonds you attain, the more you’ll progress with your abilities.”

I curled up more into the couch.

“I believe that is all for this session. From now on, when I wish to reach out to you, Boris will communicate to you in the real world, as opposed to waiting for your eventual slumber. Now, if you will?”

I heard the rope descend, and the clicking off of the lights.

####  **Saturday, August 4th**

The lights clicked off, my eyes opened again, and I stared at the ceiling fan spinning, sweating while feeling horribly cold.

It was still dark out - probably early morning. I rubbed my sore eye and dried my face with the bottom of my shirt. My phone said it was 04:00. The fact that it was still working after everything yesterday was nothing short of amazing. A miracle.

I heard shuffling in the hallway. I looked at the still bloody baton resting on the nightstand.  
Rowan said “dammit” out loud from his room, then I heard the rapid clicking of buttons and belts, and a cell phone playing some kind of weird, chunky sounding song. Apparently the walls here were thin. Great.

“Julie?” He asked through the door, knocking quietly as he could. “Are you up?”

I mumbled something, but he apparently didn’t hear it. “Yeah.”

“Uh, hey, I have, uh…” he inched the door open. “This is gonna sound weird, but do you want to go on a drive with me, like, right now?”  
“It’s 4 am.”

“Ahaha, yeah, yeah it is. So...this is gonna sound bad,” He sighed, opened the door enough so he could lean on the frame, and rubbed his eyes. He didn’t have his glasses on yet. “So...uh...hey, just, come down with me for a second.”

I tried to wrestle my way further into my covers, maybe as a way to say that I couldn’t come down and was being eaten alive by my bed, but it didn’t look like I could. I groaned with pain, got out of the bed, shivered as my bare feet hit the cold hardwood, and limped out of the room.

“Uh, let’s take care of that eye first.”

I felt the socket around my black eye, the tough skin and swelling. I probably should mess with it.

He sat me down at the kitchen table, brought out a first-aid kit in a white, translucent box, quickly looked at something on his phone, then took out a pack of ice from the fridge’s freezer. He wrapped it in paper towels, handed it to me, and motioned for me to press it against my head

“You really got beat up, huh? You sure everything’s alright?”

“It’s fine, I’m still, y’know...s’fine.”

“Alright. So, uh, the thing is, I, uh, I collect old computers.”

I stared at him through my one eye.

“You...you haven’t been in the computer room yet, have you?”

I shook my head. He looked at his watch and shrugged. “Uh, here, I’ll show you really quick.”

He gently guided me out of the room, me still limping from my mystery injuries, through the living room, and into the small, stubby hallway at the end. There were two doors, one that was probably a bathroom, the other unknown. He opened it and excitedly lead me inside.

I...really didn’t know what to expect. He was a lawyer, so I expected his office to be kind of stuffy and boring, but it...wasn’t. At all. There were a bunch of cabinets and shelves, all of the open shelves filled to the brim with big, colorful boxes, some of which I kind of recognized as really old computer games. Like, _really_ old. I saw the extremely recognizable cover of Desecration, with its muscular space marine firing a not-quite-USAR platform rifle at a lunging fire elemental, (I actually think I brought a shirt with that same cover on it…), along with a complete boxed set of the Dragon Spear series. There were a few normal books on them, but the amount of video games drastically dwarfed the books on law and true crimes. The walls were hard wood paneled, with shag carpeting that contrasted the hardwood and rugs of the rest of the house.

The most significant part of the room, though, were the variety of desks that hugged the corners and the walls of the fairly small room. There was one fairly modern PC in the center, black and white metal with a fairly powerful, wide tower and a big HD monitor, but along with it in a corner was a cluster of big, grey 90’s computers, a chunky beige monitor and tower on the desk with a few neatly organized boxes on the bottom tier of the desk. They seemed oddly different - one was an all-in-one box-like computer with a jutting keyboard, the other just seemed to be like a big keyboard with all sorts of buttons and slots in it. Another desk had a old, plastic, black computer that was pried open, it’s components scattered around in a state of mid-assemply, or disrepair.

“What do you think?”

I didn’t know what to think, really.

“You’re a nerd.”

“Ahaha! Yeah, nice observation,” he leaned against the doorframe, somewhat more relaxed and open then I’ve ever seen him. “So, the thing  is, ah...about a week before you came down, this cool CCKS Internet Admin came on eBabylon and...I mean, they had an MSRP of $200,000 back in the day, and I this one was $450, and it’s over in Kingsport, so I just did a quick bid and now I own it. Just gotta go pick it up.”

I pressed the ice harder against my eye. “How far away is it?”

“Not far, but I like getting there early and get back and mess around with it, so I kind of just want to do it all before four and then we can get home and relax.”

I looked around at the room another time. It was all really impressive. He did all of this by himself?

“So you collect old stuff like this? Spending $500 on an old computer?”

He snickered, then started walking back to the living room. “Julie, I’m a divorce lawyer in the richest county in Massachusetts. I’m not exactly _hurting_ for cash.”

The sky was dark, still threatening to rain at any moment, and the air surrounding the house was draped in dark grey fog, which I think was my first real taste of New England’s trademark spookiness. I wasn’t happy about waking up at 4 am, but I didn’t want anyone to know about it. The moment we got in the car I leaned the chair back and tried to will myself to fall asleep, the sounds of asphalt being the only noise in the early morning’s absolute stillness.

Rowan, thankfully, kept silent as I tried to sleep, and the radio wasn’t turned on, either. The only thing that was really keeping me up was myself.

I had no idea how I found myself in this situation. What the hell did I do? Get assaulted and say I didn’t want to go to school anymore? How did that get me thrown into theater Persona monster bullshit? Maybe I’m just fated to be like this. Things just happen to me and I can’t fight back, and I don’t deserve an explanation.

I glanced up at the beige car roof, stretched my hand out, and saw Puck’s two talons spreading out before me for almost a second. I heard him laugh.

“Why do you like computer stuff?” I asked in a haze, mostly just to get my mind off of whatever Puck was.

“Mmm…” he said, concentrating on the road, which as far as I knew was just complete black. “I just was always into stuff like that when I was a kid, building stuff and…playing on my dad’s old little 8-bit computer…uh, got my first when I was a little kid, actually, just a little MSC Oddysseyy when…you know what that is? One of those big, uh, compact keyboard ones, had to plug in your own monitors, ran SMPLE code, 64k of RAM…1983…man, I was only, like, 7 back then..shouldn’t have let a 5 year old play on that, that’s how you get hooked.”

I let the silence grow back.

“I remember your mom and I, like, I helped her put together her first computer in high school, well, this was back when there was dial-up and she wanted to check out…ah, what did she call it, like she thought the Internet was just for shopping. Then, y’know, there’s me, been using BBSes since…before I should know how what a BBS was. But, man, she was a shopping maniac. Worked double shifts at the Vince’s every other day and spent it all on clothes and little trinket stuff…she still do a lot of that in Tennessee?”

My mind drifted to Christmases, where absolute mountains of boxes arrived at our apartment’s front door, then to our front porch years later. Games coming in that I didn’t even really plan on getting, but I still enjoyed. Heck, I didn’t even have to go computer shopping on my own, or go to any big box stores and compare it. She did all of that.

“Yeah, a little.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think she’d change all that much with that…but, yeah, all my life, I just kind of gathered them up. You know, a computer’s obsolete the moment you take it home, pretty much, and…hm, around the time I went to law school it was the era of weird, experimental PCs that broke the year after you got them, y’know, Ymachines…” he laughed, and I started hearing the sound of rain against the windows. He turned on the wipers. “I was studying and fixing up computers for cash, I was just kind of the computer guy…not really anymore, I’m just a collector.”

I struggled against my seatbelt for a second and managed to lay down on my side, kind of. His voice made my eyelids heavy, which I appreciated.

“You want me to wake you up when we get there?”

“I guess.”

I laid still and breathed slowly until the dark sky outside invaded the car, and I dreamt of being in an empty car on an empty highway.

 

When I reopened my eyes, the sky was blue and sunlight was baking my body. I felt like a mud brick. Kind of refreshing, honestly. Like I was in Tennessee.

I fumbled around on the side of the car until I hit the lever for the reclining seat, and rocketed myself back up. It looked like we were in a suburb, bright white houses and cherry red cars and minivans. We were parked in the driveway of a two-story house with white siding, with Rowan and a fairly clean-cut, bearded guy in a hoodie apparently finishing up a deal. Rowan had a big box on the hood of the car, the other guy brought out a smaller box from the garage, put it in the trunk, thankfully not making eye contact with me, and the two shook hands before Rowan got back in the car. “Oh, good timing.”

“Mm-hm.”

He waved to the bearded guy, then slowly pulled out of the driveway.

“Nice dude, gave me that laptop for cheap and threw in this huge box of old software for it…used to be IT for the local university in the 90’s, enjoying some early retirement…”

I looked at the clock. Almost 8.

“Once we get out of Kingsport, we should just have to take the highway up to Ipswhich, then take the ferry back to Lydon. Sound good?”

“I…I guess so.”

“It’s, eh, it’s gonna be a boring drive. You got your phone on you?”

I felt my pockets and sighed with relief once I found the familiar rectangular bump. God, I’m smart. Or, well, just used to my habits.

I had two notifications, one from Lilli, one from Raul.

**raul wants 2 meet up tmmrw or today to hear what went down**

**Lilli’s said you two went to the theater and came back with some weird burns. What the hell happened? Her story doesn’t make any sense.**

I hesitated, tried to make sure that Rowan was concentrating on the road, then hunched down over my phone, against the protests of my hurting ribs.

**What did she tell you**

I then looked at the clock, and how goddamn early it was, and relaxed a bit. He probably wouldn’t respond right now – I had time to figure out what to say.

The drive wasn’t really boring, but…man, I guess it was, kind of. Green trees and green hills, and the feeling that Massachusetts was just trying to rub in how better it looked than Knoxville. It felt like we were surrounded by huge trees and the blue sky and not much else. It felt comforting and confining at the same time, kind of like how I thought babies felt when they were swaddled and being held by their moms.

I didn’t have any earbuds with me, so I ended up watching a video of data visualizations, because that was the first thing on my video app’s homepage. Then another, then a few others, until it was interrupted by a text from Raul right as I saw a ‘Welcome to Ipswich’ sign.

**Something stupid about how Samuel teleported you guys into her mind?  Which was a stadium, for some reason.**

**Then about how you fought off a giant monster and you being an alien?**

**Look, between you and me, she’s not the best at remembering things. She got dropped on the head a few times as a kid.**

**I’m not making that up.**

**Look, is it true or not?**

Jesus, he’s a talker.

The trees that were surrounding us gave way to tan brick buildings and a few strip malls, apartments, small glass office buildings and workplaces closed for the weekend. It felt like home, kind of. Less giant golden globes, though.

Rowan navigated the streets carefully, cracking his neck and staring blankly forward. The streets seemed like they had all the straightness of strands of thread. It took us a while to even get to the small parking lot for the ferry to Lydon, and even then, the timetable on a board near the shore said the next ferry wouldn’t come here in thirty minutes.

I looked at the empty text box on my phone.

“So, how do you know this Lilli girl?”

“Through school.”

“Yeah, that’s what she said…” he leaned back in the chair, obviously uncomfortable with the conversation. “She’s not mean, right? Not messing with you or anything?”

“No…she’s really nice, actually,” I mumbled. My mind drifted to her yelling at me and almost pushing me to the ground a few times. Then the monster. Then her change of voice, face…almost everything. It felt like she was a lot calmer than any time I’ve ever met her. “She’s looked out for me.”

He nodded, then looked at me with a small smile on his face. “Hey, you’re liking this town, right?”

“It’s okay…it’s a lot calmer…I don’t think a lot happens here.” I lied.

“Yeah, that’s what happens when you live on an island…” he softly chuckled. “I hope you didn’t mind me waking you up, either.”

I shook my head.

The ferry started coming our way, slowly but surely.

“You know, when your mom said you wanted to come here for a year, she said you’d be pretty easy to take care of, but after this week…man, you’re a pretty cool kid,” he gently knocked me on my shoulder. “You know, school starts…uh, next Friday, I think…we had a huge storm and that threw everything of schedule last year, so you’re pretty much going to be taking your final at summer school, then heading to your classes…I gotta register you, too…hey, you know, I’ll think you’re gonna be alright. After whatever happened yesterday, you seem pretty resilient.”

I couldn’t help but smiling. He seemed honest, and even though I never really knew him until now, he did kind of make his house feel like home. And I couldn’t help but respect him for taking me for a whole damn year, making me my own room, getting me into school.

I felt my brain dissolve into warmth, before snapping back into place with enough violent, sudden force that I felt my head snap back. The car and the sea and everything outside my window went black and white, then sepia, then it felt like the purples and blues and greens and blacks around me grew in strength and vibrance, until my world was a mix of black and purple.

Ｉ ａｍ Ｔｈｏｕ， ａｎｄ Ｔｈｏｕ ａｒｔ Ｉ

Ｔｈｏｕ ｈａｓ ｃｒｅａｔｅｄ ａ ｎｅｗ ｂｏｎｄ， ａ ｓｉｇｎ ｏｆ ｐｅａｃｅｆｕｌ ｑｕｉｅｔ ｉｎ ｔｈｉｓ ｒｅｓｔｌｅｓｓ ｗｏｒｌｄ．．．

Ｔｈｒｏｕｇｈ ｔｈｅ ｐｏｗｅｒ ｏｆ ｔｈｅ Ｌｏｖｅｒｓ Ａｒｃａｎａ， ｔｈｏｕ ａｒｔ ｏｎｅ ｓｔｅｐ ｃｌｏｓｅｒ ｔｏ ｅｎｄｉｎｇ ｔｈｅ ｎｉｇｈｔｍａｒｅ．

And then, within a microsecond, the world settled back into the way it should be. Everything was quiet again. Rowan was still smiling warmly at me, and I looked back at the ferry. It was…pretty much still in the same spot. I breathed a sigh of relief, then looked back at him.

“I-I appreciate you saying that, thanks.”

“No problem.”

I wanted to ask him if he had heard whatever god’s voice was talking about lovers and more of that arcana bullshit, but I decided against it. He just said how much he enjoyed my company. I didn’t want him to think I was crazy.

Well, I was, but I didn’t want him to know it.

I tried to direct my attention back down to the empty text box.

**Ill explain everything tomorrow im sorry**

**Itll make sense**

 

####  **Sunday, August 5th**

[“That makes _literally_ no sense.”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwSvrvq9Quo)

Lilli and Raul told me to meet them by the café right by the obsidian-covered Theater, the one that literally nobody seemed to notice despite the aura of evilness and hatred it seemingly spread throughout the city block.

“Look, dude, it’s true, alright? You can’t just-“

“Man, I’ll believe it when I see it!”

Lilli gestured to the giant theater literally right the fuck next to us.

“Raul, it’s…everything, it’s all true, I was there, and…”

He turned to me, curling his mouth inwards, apparently considering everything I was telling him. I was the one that had to convey most of the story, at least the giant fight that marked it’s climax. I had to explain what a Persona was, to the best of my ability, and honestly all I was able to say was ‘grass ghost thing’. He didn’t seem to buy it.

“So I just…I go there, I tell that mask dude that I want to get into my mind, and he does it?”

“I guess, that’s how it worked for us…”

He rolled his eyes, leaning backwards in the wrought iron chair, tapping the table and obviously not trying to stare at the theater right next to us. “I mean…what, it was a monster borne out of your anger at the world,” he mused, pointing a finger to Lilli, “and you killed it, but…well, you look like you hurt a fair bit. But…you know, after you guys got out, Lilli ran right to my room and started apologizing about all the shit she’s done to me over the years…”

“You didn’t have to throw in that bullshit!”

“Hey, it was true.”

Lilli leaned over the table, sneering at Raul, which he responded by not changing his blank, kind of contemplative face at all. “And we didn’t even tell you anything about representation or shit! Where’d you get that?”

He shrugged. “I mean…hey, it’s just a guess. If there was a monster lurking in your mind, it’d probably be angry at everything.”

“Fuck off.”

I thought back to that nightmare I had one of the first nights I came here. Drowning in that…black…blood…

“You know…I, uh, when I got here…I, I don’t want to explain everything, but when…my old high school, I was bullied, y’know…it didn’t help me at all…”

Both of them looked at me.

“I had a nightmare about…drowning in black blood. It wanted me to kill myself. It was last Tuesday, I think…but…”

“It wanted to…”

I looked away. Raul wisely shut up.

“But the monster was bleeding that black blood stuff. It…I don’t know how, but it felt the same as whatever I was in.”

“You were drowning, right? Did you pull yourself out?”

I nodded.

Raul scratched the back of his neck. “What happened afterwards?”

I rubbed my forehead for a second or two. In all honesty, I felt a lot better, at least physical. The burns felt like they were healing abnormally fast, and my eye wasn’t purple anymore. “I think…I think it drained, and I was at my house in Knoxville, and I felt… I felt okay, at least.”

“Hey, you didn’t see it, but after you exploded the monster thing, the stadium lit up,” Lilli started poking the air, like she was putting a puzzle together in the space in front of her, bouncing her finger up in down. “Yeah, it lit up, started shakin’ like an earthquake, and when we were walking out it felt like a night market back at Temple Street. Like, surrounded by people, but they weren’t, y’know…I dunno, that’s my idea of calm.”

Raul  kept rolling his lip inward, chewing at the inside of his mouth, then nodded to himself. “So, you think I should do it? Get in that theater and try my mind?”

“Hell yeah! Always wanted to see the kinda shit you got up in there. We got this girl and Puck, we’ll be fine.” Lilli put her arm around my shoulder, jostling me around a bit too much. “You gonna keep us safe in there?”

I froze at the very idea.

“When should we try?”

“Uhhh…” Lilli groaned. “Summer school and actual school are, like, what, four days apart? Ends on Wednesday, starts that next Monday, I think.”

“Should we try throwing ourselves in there that soon, then?” Raul scratched the back of his neck again. “Oh, crap, Max is coming back Wendesday, too. I want to make sure I don’t look like I stood in front of a semi truck…no offense.”

I shrugged.

“What about tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?” I grimaced.

“That’s…uh, hey, I have first aid training. We can meet up here a bit early, I’ll clean you guys up afterwards if you get beat up.”

I shook my head, at my last attempt at resistence, but I didn’t think I could convince them otherwise. I let out a meek ‘sure’, and that was that.

“Alright, Monday it is…uh, should I bring something to defend myself?” Raul asked, a bit unsure.

“Nah, Julie’s Person-thing should be enough.”

“Whatever you say.”

I gulped a little bit.

Puck laughed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Late post! Late post! Jesus Christ!  
> This chapter kind of felt like a slog to get through, but that's mostly just because I felt like it was...kind of boring for me, at least. I'm really excited to get to the next ones, mostly because it's finally getting out of the stuff I had already planned down to the goddamn detail and I'm going to finally get to experiment around a little bit. I'm looking forward to them!  
> Sorry if some of the writing sounds weird. I just got out of a funk and I'm trying to speed things along a little bit. It feels weird to write Julie after a long time of not writing her, since she kind of requires a certain mentality to get into, at least for me, and, funnily enough, that usually requires me to not be depressed to get into her...
> 
> Also, I've just been checking back to weed out edits for shit, and...I just noticed that I managed to keep out the entire fucking fight scene from Chapter 11, Hurt Yourself, apparently due to some kind of Archive fuckup? What the fuck, me? I went ahead and fixed that, so it'd be a good to check it out if you could. I'm kind of glad I'm switching back from Google Drive to Microsoft Word, since that appears to be the root of the problem.


	14. Don't Know How But You Found Me Out

####  **Monday, August 6th**

The plan was, seemingly, simple. After school, Raul would pick us up, we’d go to the Theater, we’d show him the arena, hopefully without any monsters, pain, or anything. Hopefully.

I sat on the side of my bed for a while after I woke up, pressing the flesh around my eye and sighing with relief when it felt decently soft. The flesh around my ribs wasn’t nearly as wrinkled and dead-looking, with only a few slight bits of singed skin and open wounds. 

I got dressed for the day, picked up the thick metal baton that was still resting on my dresser, huffed a bit as I tapped it against the wood. I hope they didn’t decide to randomly check on my backpack today. I’d get expelled before the school year even started, and then where would my parents send me? Florida? 

I tried to drive out my anxiety as I walked out of the house and rode through the slightly damp town. It must’ve rained again last night, but not as much. The dew from the grass and the small puddles that got kicked up by my bike tires and the cars around me felt refreshing. I still struggled to not think about my spine getting severed by that horrible giant monster or Puck taking over and throwing me into a meat grinder made of splintered glass or something. I just tried to focus on the road ahead, the small golden sun in the sky and the pale grey above it. I breathed in and out. I focused on much more believable things to stress out about, like how I still haven’t contacted my mom. Why my wounds were healing too fast. Lilli. Mostly Lilli.

I skidded to a stop in front of the back entrance to the school, slowly dismounted so I wouldn’t get any mud or water on my jeans or sneakers, placed my bike as close to the rack as possible, like normal, and made my way to the doors.

“Hey! Yo!”

Lilli’s voice was way too familiar. I froze up before loosening my shoulders and turning around.

“Hey, you ready for tonight?” she said, with a smile on her face,like it was a party or something.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Come on, dude, you’ll do great! That Puck thing’s fucking wild, you’ll be fine.”

I glanced down at the lawn next to the sidewalk and the bike rack, ignoring the pricks in the back of my mind when I noticed the roots and sprouts that pointed up from underneath the dirt.

“Y’know, like...uh…” her face soured slightly as she kinda uncharacteristically avoided eye contact. She stretched her neck a little bit, before digging her fingers deeper into her pockets and slumped against the concrete wall. “Hey, can I be honest with you? Just some actual shit.”   


As opposed to fake shit.   


“I guess…”   


"I've, y'know...been thinking...a lot. About that dream thing...I'm really sorry. For just...being a piece of shit to you."   


I started to rub my thumb through my fingers, just because of the awkwardness in the air. "You weren't, it's-"   


"No, no, I...fuck, I've been shit to everyone, you know? Raul, Max...you...I mean, the first time I...I saw you...I lied about all that shit, the 'oh, well you're cool', fuck. I was...gonna use you as a scapegoat, right? Fuckin'...moment something went...forget it, I'm a piece of shit, I know," she rubbed the bruise on her shoulder and looked into the grey sky above us. 

"But...how you stood up to me and that monster in that...on Friday...I really respect th-no, no, that's..." she rolled in her lips, like she was trying to keep the next words from coming out. "That was the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me. You saved my life back there."   


I felt my cheeks get hot again. I...didn't know that. I felt bad now, but I didn't know why.   


“Do you...d'you think we can just start over? I want to get to the bottom of that theater thing, me and Raul, but I really...I mean, I need help t'do that, fuck, and I ain't gonna get it if I keep treating you guys like shit."   
"Start over?"   


"Y'know, uh...just be friends. Put all that shit behind us. I mean, partners, if friends is too weird."   


"Uh, no! No, friends is...I always thought we were friends before, and..."   


I put out my hand, palm open, trying to invite a handshake.   


"I'd really be honored."   


Lilli glanced at me, her face growing into a small but genuine smile. She grabbed my hand firmly, shook it, then brought me in for one of those hugs where you pat their backs that I had only seen in shows. It felt...awful. Too similar. I had to pull myself away and breath in deep, and she just...I guess she just didn’t mind.

I felt that same sudden whiplash from Saturday. The world’s greys and whites and her pink coalesced, brightened, and then flattened into blacks and purples, before melding back together into the same world that I was in.

Ｉ ａｍ Ｔｈｏｕ， ａｎｄ Ｔｈｏｕ ａｒｔ Ｉ

Ｔｈｏｕ ｈａｓ ｃｒｅａｔｅｄ ａ ｎｅｗ ｂｏｎｄ， ａ ｓｉｇｎ ｏｆ ｐｅａｃｅｆｕｌ ｑｕｉｅｔ ｉｎ ｔｈｉｓ ｒｅｓｔｌｅｓｓ ｗｏｒｌｄ．．．

Ｔｈｒｏｕｇｈ ｔｈｅ ｐｏｗｅｒ ｏｆ ｔｈｅ Ｌｕｓｔ Ａｒｃａｎａ， ｔｈｏｕ ａｒｔ ｏｎｅ ｓｔｅｐ ｃｌｏｓｅｒ ｔｏ ｅｎｄｉｎｇ ｔｈｅ ｎｉｇｈｔｍａｒｅ．

I took another breath of damp air, then slowly pried myself away from her, but it still felt...really nice. I don’t think I’ve ever had someone...actually recognize me before. Christ, my life is sad. 

“Thanks...I guess. It means a lot.” 

“Yeah, don’t mention it,” she pat me on the back, then turned to the school’s entrance. “See you today, right?”

“Yeah...see you then…”

The sky didn’t bother to clear up much by the time school let out. It was mostly review. I’m pretty sure school ended this week, and...I mean, it was pretty pointless for me. Oh well. 

Raul’s beat up car was waiting for us by the sidewalk directly by the school’s back entrance. I had already folded up my bike and carefully placed it down in the trunk, and Lilli was already in the passenger seat. I climbed into the back, and noticed that the other seat was taken by a small camping bag, near-bulging with whatever was inside. There was a red cross on the front, so I could only guess it was medical supplies.

Raul looked back at me, then at Lilli, with an iron grip on the wheel. 

“You ready?”

He exhaled. 

“Man, you were the one that agreed to this.”

“Yeah, yeah, just…” he rubbed his forehead, looked one more time at me, then began pulling away from the parking lot, driving towards the road.

“Which way was...that cafe place? From...ah, crap…” 

“Man, calm down.”

“You’ve only been in there once! Does that make you some kinda expert?” he said, before he breathed in and out a few times. “Julie, you still have that Persona thing with you, right?”

“Uhhh...I can’t...I don’t think I...yeah, I do.”

“So...Christ. How does it work? Like…”

“I...I don’t know. I remember...the monster about to kill me, and the...I, I felt this…”

I remember vomiting that gross blood, then...that weird, warm feeling...of fire. A blazing hot, yet refreshingly cool fire that drained me of my fear and hatred, and...his voice. His voice that sounded just like mine, but much more...less sad. More like how I was.

“I felt kind of...at peace. Completely. I knew myself, I guess. And...when I saw him - Puck, when I saw Puck, I could see...see through his eyes, I guess…”

“What do you mean?”

“Like...like a seperate kind of view, or... “

I tried to remember how it felt.

“Like...I don’t know. I could see through his eyes, but he could do stuff on his own, and I could control him...and I felt his pain...and I could, I could just...it felt like magic. You know...the vine stuff I did.” As I talked, I traced swirls and looping lines into the rough fuzz of my seat.

He sighed. “Alright, alright. I’ll see it in action, I guess. Lilli, you have your phone?”

“Uh, yeah”

“You gonna be able to take pictures in there?”

“Uh, not really. Phones don’t work?”

“What?”

I nodded. “Mine kind of...froze.”

I noticed the coffee cup building and imposing black structure closing in as the car drove forward. It stopped near the curb, and Raul froze for a second.

“You good, dude?”

“Ugh…” he unclicked his seatbelt, seemingly limp. “Yeah, I just have to...eh, it’ll be fine. I hope.” He dug into the camera bag on the CD console and took out the expensive-looking one he always carried. “I...I probably don’t want to bring this one in…” he mumbled, placing it carefully in the center console itself. “Allright...hey, can you grab the bag?”

I got out of the car, walked around, and tugged at it until I managed to move it. It must’ve been half my weight! Did he have bricks in there?

The moment I gave up, he came over, grabbed one of the straps, and threw it across his shoulder effortlessly. Of course.

We wordlessly approached the glass doors of the theater, only showing black inside. Of course. As we got closer, the air chilled and wind slowed down, until it felt like it stopped completely.

Lilli put a hand on the door, pushing and pulling to no effect. The door didn’t even move. 

I pressed a hand onto the cold glass. “How’d we get it open last time?” 

Raul stared into the darkness ahead of him. “Was it like...some sort of...huh…”

“The lights went out, like...actually, they went on, right? And the world went dark...ugh, sounds stupid.” Lilli kicked the metal underside of the door. “Sam! Hey! Open up!”

Raul bent down with a slight grunt, examining whatever lock there was. “There isn’t a space for a key. Hey, is there some kind of opening mechanism? Like on those statues?”

“No, last time it just kinda opened on it’s own.”

He scratched his head. “Come on, man….” Raul knocked politefully a few times. “Samuel? You there? His name  _ is _ Samuel, right?”

“Maybe we should just…” I whispered, sheepish grin on my face, pointing to the car behind us.

Raul sneered. “I’ve come too far to give up on this thing.”

The air grew colder and colder as he spoke, and once he finished and swallowed, the lights above us light up all at once, with a resounding  _ shunk _ sound, humming with electricity. Just as the last few times, the world around us seemingly...stopped, and the lights on the inside of the theater turned on by themselves.

Raul stood dumbstruck.

“Well, you got your wish. Ya going in or not?”

He loosened his shoulders a little bit. “Let’s go.”

The first thing we saw in the theater’s lobby was Samuel, standing motionless, with his hands behind his back, looking forward - or, as near as I could tell with his mask. 

“Ah! Friends! You’ve returned at last!” He threw up his hands in a mild, stoic celebration. “I’ve been waiting! Oh, I have such sights to show you! The orchestra has had new life breathed into it!”

Raul stopped dead in his tracks. “Yeah, sure.”

“Oh, and I must apologize for my behavior last go-around. I felt quite inadequate with regard to my ability to lead you around these delightful new worlds. So, in order to provide more adequate help, I’ve taken it upon myself to learn.”

“Learn...what, exactly?”

He turned towards me, slightly leaning forward. His mask’s eyes felt more...piercing than they previously did. “To begin, I spent a fairly long time finding a way to ascend up to this part of the theater! I never fathomed it could be this big!” He spread his arms out again. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

Lilli just rolled her eyes. 

“Sameul, right? Can you take us down to the theater again? Like, the stage and everything.”

“Oh, of course. The orchestra is just waiting for a pair of deft hands to tickle it!”

“Holy shit, dude.”

Samuel seemingly ignored Lilli’s comment as he walked to the elevator. “Ah, also, it nearly slipped my mind, but…” He turned around to all of us again, blocking the entrance to the elevator. I saw Lilli reach down for her knife in her pocket. “May I ask for your names? I don’t recall ever sharing proper introductions.”

I coughed, trying to signal that I didn’t want to go first, but the other two were decidedly silent. Shit. “Uh...my name’s Julie. Bousher. Julie Bousher.”

“Just...call me Lilli, I guess.”

Raul stuck his hand out proudly, if a bit unsteady. “Raul Francisco de Paula Douglas. Glad to meet you.”

Samuel just stared at the open hand.

“You, uh…” he reached forward, grabbed Sam’s pale wrist, and gently guided it to his own. “Grab it and shake.”

The two of them held hands for about a minute before Raul ashamedly let go. “We should go down now.”

“I agree! Lilli, Julie, Raul, let us depart!” he said, with this...strange voice. I still had trouble trying to place whatever the hell his accent was. It sounded like a dude who never spoke for 15 years and just now decided to pick up English. He pronounced some vowels too long and mushed syllables together, but what he screwed up seemed to change every other word. Was his mouth just constantly filled with molasses or something? Despite it, though, he still spoke with a strange sort of confidence and diction befitting of a celebrity or an actor, which...I guess seemed right.

The four of us clambered into the elevator. Samuel examined the buttons, then pressed the top one. Then the second one.

“The hell’re you doing?” 

He turned back to Lilli. “Oh, this is how I discovered how to operate this machine! I pressed every button until something - “

She gently pushed Samuel aside, (well, as much as someone like her could be gentle), pressed the bottommost button, and shook her head.

“How many floors does this place have?” Raul adjusted his glasses, scanning each button on the row. “Man, the only one I can…Julie, check this out.”

I maneuvered around his bag and looked at the rows of buttons. A lot of them had...text. I think. It was too blurry to read. Like a dream. Wasn’t it like that in Lilli’s mind, too?

“So it’s not just my glasses.”

“I guess not…”

The elevator dinged, and the doors opened to the brightly-lit purple theater. I could make out the twisted metal pipes and whining steam valves of the Orchestra in the back, and the massive boilers, the tubes that went nowhere, the few embers that escaped the vents and furnace in the middle. The tubes still pulsed and bulged with whatever it was carrying. The entire thing still felt alive. I tried not to stare at it, since every time I took a long look at it I tried to follow it’s intricate workings, the pipes and wires and consoles, the liquid and heat that ran through it, it all seemed to mush together and make my head feel like it was being shaken in a blender.

“Now, let us begin, for the Orchestra has had a new life breathed into its veins! Are you ready to partake in the music of the soul?”

Raul climbed up the stage, gently set his camera bag and big duffel bag down, and took out a small white camera, seemingly cheap plastic with bright purple lines on it’s face. “Yeah, go ahead.”

Samuel immediately began twisting knobs and pulling a giant, rubber-tipped lever in the center, causing valves and dials to spin to life, diodes to light up and the machine’s insides to flare up with the screams of Hell. The tubes pumping whatever started flowing faster, the pipes rattled with steam, and it finally began to sing.

The first sound was what sounded like boat oars in stormy waters, yelling in another language, which quickly changed into English-sounding gibberish and pure screaming. I heard the sound of film reels and camera shutters, angry pounding on a typewriter or a keyboard, radio static that was loud enough to almost deafen me. The screaming continued, I felt the sensation of snow on my skin followed by...what sounded like rifle gunshots ringing right in my ears. Crying, yelling from a woman’s voice, sounds of...jail cells, metal against metal, gut punches and slaps against the face. All the noises started...cutting off, one by one. Until there was a sound of tendons being severed, thousands of them, all at once.

By the time it was finished, I gladly accepted the eerie silence of the theater, taking some deep breaths and letting my heart stop pounding from fear. Lilli had, wisely, cupped her ears and let out an exhausted exhale. Raul was on the ground, apparently caught in the middle of examining his small camera, staring foward.

The sound of pulleys and thick rope broke the silence. A door wheeled it’s way across the ceiling, above the stage, and slowly descended. It was made of metal, rusted over and dented, with some kind of Asian script on it. I think it was Korean.

Raul watched it with an unbreaking gaze as it slowly settled on the floor. His mouth was hanging somewhat agape, in either shock or confusion, perhaps a healthy amount of both. He got up and slowly walked to the metal door, traced his fingers across the writing, and slowly nudged it open. 

Inside was a snow-covered wasteland.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! I finished this in like, two days! That's a record for this year! Take that, depression, you goddamn bitch!  
> Quick note, Lilli's Arcana is 'Lust' from Aleistor Crowley's Thoth deck, which is what I'll be using to refer to Social Links. However, the majority of the cards are the same, and the few that go by different names can be interpreted as the exact same cards. In this case, 'Lust' would refer to 'Strength', and could be read as both mastering your inner strength and fully enjoying the power it brings. Essentially, rather than having a kind of carnal lust, it means just having a lust for life and joy through your own ability.
> 
> tumblr: http://waggletonpt.tumblr.com  
> email: waggletonpt@gmail.com


	15. Never Coming Home

The three of us stood solemnly in front of the door, [cold wind](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1WJwQ7tlBM) hitting our face. The metal of the door seemed to be caked in a thin layer of frost that only slightly warmed when I touched it. I recoiled my hand away once my fingertip seemingly flash-froze, with white veins that crawled their way up my black fingertip before they died out.

“Yo, we going in?”

Raul stood silent. 

Lilli touched my hand, I guess trying to make sure I was still alive, then tapped my back. “Come on, we going?”

“This isn’t that arena place…”

“Yeah, dipshit, it ain’t. We should still go.”

I tried to look around outside the door, but gave up on resisting. “Alright, I guess.”

Lilli put a foot out, noticed that her shoe sole didn’t quite connect with the snowy ground for some reason, then hopped down the rest of the way. She grabbed my hand and helped me down, but Raul still stood quiet. Sam’s porcelain mask slowly emerged from the darkness - its black eyes and perfectly molded smile making me kind of unsettled, but he simply walked beside him, carefully stepped down the drop, and glanced quickly at the setting around him.

“Hey!” Raul shouted, seemingly coming out of his shock. “What’re you guys going in there for? This doesn’t-”

“Come on, dude, we’re exploring. Snow’s cool, right?”

“What the hell is this? How-how’d you fit this inside the door?” He gripped around the side of the doorframe, but his arm only ended up grasping cold air. “How...how the..”

“Come on, dude, don’t you wanna check it out?”

Raul let out a few shocked sighs as he grasped the side of the door, eventually getting on his hands and knees to search the bottom ring, leaning forward off the edge and seeing that the door wasn’t connected on anything on...really any side. He tried to get closer, I guess trying to grab the floor of the theater through the other side of the door, but he tumbled forward, head-over-chest, and ended up falling neck-first to onto the snow before laying on his back. 

“Ah...crap, that hurt…” he peeled himself up and rubbed the kink in his neck. I went to help him up, pulling him up by his hand, but he kind of struggled to stand up. “Man, this…”

He took a small glance back, but his head suddenly whipped around to stare at the empty air. The door had...blinked out of existence. Instead it was just a clear shot of the grey, featureless sky.

“What the hell happened? Where’d it go?”

“Yeah…” Lilli stared at where it used to be hanging, then eyed Sam. “Where’d it go?”

“I…”

“No, you have to know, don’t you? You said you’d be fucking good at this now!”

“I don’t know! I’m so sorry! This is outside my ability, I’m...I’m so extremely sorry…”

“It was…” she balled up her fist, but then looked at me furtively. “It  _ was _ there, right? We could just leave?”

I thought back to the first time we did this...it felt like, over a month or so ago, but everything’s only been...a single week. “I don’t think it was…”

“It was there when I took you and Sam out…”

I stayed silent.

She loosened her fist a little bit, averting her gaze from me and Samuel. “It was only there…”

I nodded slowly. “It came out when I killed the monster.”

“No, no...that’s…” Raul shook his head wildly. “No, you can’t do this! You have to put that door back!”

“I simply can’t, sadly...I don’t have that...capability. I’m not sure…”

“No, come on! You can’t...we have to go back! This...I’m not going! I can’t!” Raul shouted frantically. He felt like the kind of person that...if he was freaking out,  _ you _ should be freaking out. But...at the same time, I felt remarkably anchored. 

“Raul, chill. I mean…” Lilli’s gaze drifted to the snow falling around her. “You know, alright. We just have to…”

“I’m not going anywhere until that door comes back,  _ like it’s supposed to _ .”

“Man, fine! Stay here with the mask freak, we’re heading out.”

Sam cocked his head, taking some steps ahead of Lilli. “May I come as well?”

I shrugged as Lilli walked ahead into the horizon, stopping mid stride. “Look, dude, it’s your last chance. We’ll come back, but I...man, if something…”

“I-I get it…” Raul hoisted his bag over his shoulder. “Do you...have anything you, that I can use? Like, to defend myself?”

Lilli pulled out the switchblade she had last time from her pocket, and I made sure my baton was in my cargo pants.

“Don’t think so, man.”

“What about Sam?”

“I’ll be fine, I’m sure of it. I’d rather stick behind, anyhow.”

“Uh, alright.”

The four of us walked forward a fair bit in the snow. Strangely, it wasn’t...all that cold. It felt more like a blast from a store freezer than anything, but the temperature still made me pull together my thin, purple sweater. After a while of slow walking, it didn’t seem like we were getting anywhere…

I took a quick look around, and the little...surrealities of the setting began to make themselves apparent. First, the surrounding area was seemingly made out of tall, grey mountains, ones that were all uniform in shape and apparently rounded at the peak, almost like sine waves, and they all seemed extremely far away, Then I stared at the horizon underneath the mountains, and the one we were sloly marching towards. It all felt, like...uniform. They all seemingly cut off at the same, short distance. 

Then we saw four pairs of footprints heading forward. 

It took me a second to register, then…”Oh, come on.”

“DId we just…”

“Goddamn it!”

“Oh, are there more people here?”

Lilli sighed. “Sam, it’s like a globe or something.”

“How’s that even possible?” Raul took out the cheap plastic camera, snapped a picture, then let it print out a small square of paper. “This is...too weird…”

“Oh, it’s going to get worse…” I mused.

Lilli tapped her foot in the snow, dusting it up like...I guess snow does? I’ve never seen it until now. “Well, we’re fucked.”

“Don’t say that!”

I looked to the left, shrugged, then started walking. 

“Hey, where’re you going?” Raul shouted.

“Gotta go somewhere, right?”

Lilli looked back at the two guys, then nodded and walked along with me. We walked until we saw them on the horizon, and she and screamed with a resounding ‘FUCK!’

“Oh, come on!”

“Hello again!”

“Shut up, Sam.”

Raul’s face sunk. “Alright, now what?”

“Anyone got any rations?”

The three of them looked at me.

“Like, uh, MREs...Meals Ready To Eat? Like…uh…” I gave up. “Food. I’m kind of hungry.”

“Man, don’t say that shit now.”

Raul looked behind us. “Sam, can’t you just do the door thing? Please?”

Samuel’s mask lowered. “I’m...I’m very sorry, again, I cannot…”

“No...no, come on…” he adjusted his glasses with a shaking hand, before furiously shaking his head and standing defiant against Sam. “Goddammit! I’m not going to die here! There has to be an exit!”

“Fine, then. Go find one.”

“Shut up, Lilli! If I have to...I’m going to get us out of here.”

He turned and walked away from the group, before stopping in his tracks. “Oh... _ oh no _ …”

The three of us raced to his side, and saw something that...simply couldn’t have been there before.

It looked like one of those horrible cult compounds they showed on television news right after they got found out. There were two giant grey towers connected by a grey brick fence, with barbed wire on the front with spikes a foot long and covered in gore. The only entrance was a pair of huge bolted metal doors, covered in spikes from the front and barred shut. There were dull red banners hanging from each tower, each in complete gibberish made out of circles and dashes in no clear order, obviously not any kind of Korean...or any kind of language, either. 

“No...no, I’m…”

“Dude, what’s wrong?”

“I’m not, I can’t go in, no…”

Lilli was rapidly losing patience. “Dude, it’s a building. We have a grass alien in case anything goes wrong.”

“Y-you don’t understand! I, I’m not going in! I can’t!” He stammered, shaking. All the confidence he had was gone. “No, no, this isn’t happening, I…”

“Raul, that’s the only new place here! Where else are we going to go?”

The two of them kept bickering.

“Do they do this often?” Sam whispered to me. 

“Yeah, they do.”

I looked at them, Raul closing up and shaking his head, eyes slightly wide behind his glasses, and Lilli tugging him slightly forwards, and felt my body being slightly pulled towards the building, like the earth under my feet was shifting forwards.

Might as well.

I headed forward, Samuel seemingly getting the picture and walking with me. The building was deceptively close to where we were standing, and soon the two of us were at the door. The spike were slightly...bloodied, but I noticed before I tried to touch them. It looked heavy to the point of being immovable, made out of a reddish-brown metal that didn’t shine in whatever light the world had. The only mechanism that it apparently had was the giant bar keeping it shut. Even on my tippy toes, my tiny fingers barely touched the bottom of the bar.

“Hey, Sam, can you help me up?”

“Hm?”

“Like, give me a boost up.”

“You’re doing great!”

It took me a second or two to register what he said.

“Oh, my  _ God. _ ..ugh, like...bless your heart, but can you just help me up so I can reach that bar?”

“Oh! I suppose so!” He stared at the door for a second. “How?”

I closed my eyes for a second. Just...God. “Just, crouch down a little bit and let me get on your back?”

“Oh, that sounds good!”

He walked to the bottom of the door and kneeled on one knee, and put his hand forward, and, though it was a bit tough, I managed to stand on it fairly fine. The spikes, though fairly thick, made fairly fine footholds. The blood on it wasn’t really blood, or...at least, I didn’t really think it was blood. It felt like paint. Thank god for that one time I didn’t skip out on P.E. when we were doing rock climbing.

“Hey, what’re you doing?”

I glanced back down behind me, at Lilli, holding Raul by his shoulder. “I’m climbing up the door.”

“Oh, holy shit, really? Get down, dude.”

I dangled my feet a little bit, trying to gauge distance. 

The door started to shake just as my foot left it’s stable hold. I heard barks.

Raul piqued up.

“Oh, christ.” Lilli held Raul tighter.

The door vibrated, with what felt like giant punches against the metal. I heard a siren sound. My heart stopped.

The bar shook loose until it broke in half completely.

The door swung open with a force that almost impaled me with the protruding spikes.

Raul screamed and stumbled over himself running away, breaking free of Lilli’s grasp. 

Two giant, black dogs, bulging with muscle, with spiked collars and empty eyes, giant fangs that broke out of their mouth like a crocodile. They had short, stubby noses, like bulldogs, and knifelike claws that scraped the snow loose as the ran forwards towards Raul.

I stared in horror as they lunged towards him, the other running towards Lilli, with Sam standing in the middle of their warpath, still with fear.

The only thing Raul could do was throw his camera bag at the bigger dog as it pursued him. It took it’s time, slowly walking forward, growling and drooling black spit. The bag only bounced off the dog’s head, and, in a strange kind of recognition, the dog stomped on it, sending splinters of plastic and metal onto the snow. 

“No!”

The dog seemingly...laughed. And growled. 

“Get...away…” Lilli growled, struggling with one of the dogs, plunging her switchblade into it’s neck. The dog slumped to the ground for a second, but was still seemingly alive - biting at her and howling, then managed to stand up on again, slowly bleeding. Lilli, horrifyingly ambivalent to the dog, tried to tackle Raul’s pursuer, but only managed to slightly knock it off balance.

“Behind you!” I screamed, trying to keep my grip on the spikes while also trying to find a way off the wall itself, but in a lapse of concentration, I felt myself falling in the air before I could realize I had dropped.

My brain froze, the gray skies, white snow, and metal wall seemingly stopping in place. I felt a tear in my heart, like it was being split in two, and I saw my skin becoming coated in that same white fire from...that one day.

I landed on a purple petaled flower that had sprung up from the snow - soft and spongy - and my body made a small amount of pollen float up from the stamen. Puck stretched his hand forward and pulled me up with a sudden jerk. 

“Ah, thanks.” The flower sunk back into the ground, leaving a patch of soil in the middle of the snow, and I tried to re-gain my footing on the flat ground. 

Raul was flat on the ground, slowly inching backwards as the dogs pursued him, until one of them looked backwards at me - its hot breath leaving steam in the air as it breathed, its eyeless sockets twitching in a kind of anger - and it smiled as it ran full-tilt at me.

My body flinched backwards, and I...Puck put his fingers forward, creating a wall of rock and soil that shot straight up from underneath the ground. I saw it even though my eyes were closed - a giant pillar of permafrosted snow and pointed rocks, capped with snow that reached far too down.

The dog leaped and jumped straight through it. Not even scarred. Time felt like it slowed down, and I only barely managed to crawl out from under it’s shadow. The hound landed with a thunderous slam, kicking up dusty snow and small drops of black blood. 

“Get...no! Heel!”

Lilli rushed towards me, but tripped on...something, only barely managing to land on her shoulder.

I tried to scramble up, pulling out the baton from my pocket and whipping it out. The dog reered itself and lunged at me, and I only barely managed to swipe the metal at it’s jaws. Small ceramic flew everywhere, but when I tried to strike again, it bit the club and forced itself towards me with its horrifically strong jaws. I felt it’s disgusting breath on my neck, and it slowly twisted its mouth in a way that bent my wrist, inching the baton closer and closer to my own body...too close to even let it go without probably breaking something…

Lilli was standing in the middle of us, looking between Raul and I, empty handed, breathing faster and faster. I saw veins pop from her neck as she, apparently, decided which one of us to save...I could only hope it was Raul…

[The snow stopped falling.](https://aether-realm.bandcamp.com/track/tarot-instrumental)

ʟᴏᴏᴋ ᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇᴍ, ʙʟᴇᴇᴅɪɴɢ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ꜱᴡɪɴᴇ…

She doubled down over her stomach, clutching her head in pain.

ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴋɪɴᴅ ᴏꜰ ꜰᴏᴏʟ ᴡᴏᴜʟᴅ ᴛʀʏ ᴛᴏ ᴘʀᴏᴛᴇᴄᴛ ꜰʀɪᴇɴᴅꜱ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ꜱʜᴇ ᴅᴏᴇꜱɴ'ᴛ ᴇᴠᴇɴ ʜᴀᴠᴇ? ᴡʜʏ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ʀᴜɴ? ʟᴇᴀᴠᴇ ᴛʜᴇᴍ ʙᴇʜɪɴᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇɪʀ ꜰᴀᴛᴇ...

“Sh-shut up! I…”

ʟʏɪɴɢ ᴛᴏ ʏᴏᴜʀꜱᴇʟꜰ, ᴀꜱ ᴜꜱᴜᴀʟ? ᴏʀ ᴡᴏᴜʟᴅ ʏᴏᴜ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛʀᴜᴛʜ? ᴛʜᴇꜱᴇ ɪᴅɪᴏᴛꜱ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ᴄᴀʀᴇ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ʏᴏᴜ...ᴡʜʏ ᴡᴏᴜʟᴅ ᴛʜᴇʏ? ʏᴏᴜ ᴅɪꜱʜᴏɴᴏʀᴀʙʟᴇ ᴡʀᴇᴛᴄʜ ᴏꜰ ᴀ ᴡᴀʀʀɪᴏʀ.

Her head lurched forward, black oil staining her pink spikes and dripping down. “Shut up!” Her eyes went wide, bloodshot, pupils as small as pinpoints. She grit her teeth hard, to the point that red blood began to trickle from her mouth. “Shut...up…! I’ll…”

ᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴏɴ, ꜰᴏᴏʟ! ᴘʀᴏᴠᴇ ʏᴏᴜʀꜱᴇʟꜰ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇᴍ! ꜰɪɴᴅ ʟᴏᴠᴇ ᴛʜʀᴏᴜɢʜ ᴘᴀꜱꜱɪᴏɴ, ᴏʀ ᴅɪᴇ ᴀʟᴏɴᴇ. 

Her mouth began splintering with black-bleeding cracks, sweat beading down her face and soaking her shirt. 

ᴘɪᴄᴋ ᴜᴘ ʏᴏᴜʀ ꜱᴡᴏʀᴅ, ꜱᴏʟᴅɪᴇʀ. ꜰɪɢʜᴛ ʙᴀᴄᴋ ᴀɢᴀɪɴꜱᴛ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴏᴘᴘʀᴇꜱꜱᴏʀꜱ ᴏʀ ʙᴇᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴀ ꜱᴛᴀɪɴ ɪɴ ʜɪꜱᴛᴏʀʏ! ᴍᴀᴋᴇ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴍᴀʀᴋ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴛʜᴇ ʙʟᴏᴏᴅ ᴏꜰ ᴇᴠɪʟ! 

She lurched forward, her pupils gone, only white and red, and she reached forward for the knife embedded into the dog biting at Raul, pulling it out, and kicking her leg straight through the dog’s torso. Her jaw split open completely, turning into a jagged mess of skin, teeth, and black blood. The dog recoiled, then turned its body at her - at which point she grabbed it’s loose jaw and threw it against the ground away from Raul, then, with a single, gruesome tug, tore it straight off in a cloud of blood.

ʏᴏᴜ'ᴠᴇ ᴀᴄᴄᴇᴘᴛᴇᴅ ᴍʏ ᴘᴏᴡᴇʀ? ᴠᴇʀʏ ᴡᴇʟʟ...ʟᴇᴛ ᴜꜱ ʙᴇɢɪɴ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴀʀ.

Lilli, jawless and bleeding, threw her head up, still holding the bleeding jaw, and screamed so loud it rung in my ears. The dog biting me recoiled away, giving me enough time to slug it across the nose.

She tore off her face, flinging it to the ground, and became enveloped in a white fire that grew to a blazing inferno, scorching the snow and turning the air around her into steam. 

Ｉ ａｍ ｔｈｏｕ， ａｎｄ ｔｈｏｕ ａｒｔ Ｉ！

The blaze subsided, leaving only a perfectly concentric ring of soil and burned grass around her. Lilli stood perfectly intact, but exhausted, and beside her kneeled an extremely tall, muscular...suit of armor, seemingly. It was clad in a leather jacket, with a metal pleated tunic and cloak, all studded and with long brass rings sewn to the bottom. It’s chest was seemingly armor molded in the shape of abs, and it’s head was an enveloping motorcycle helmet, with a vicious spike on top, and with the design of a shimmering white skull. It stood up fully on two studded stiletto heels, its body the size of a school bus, and summoned a mace from a pillar of fire that sprouted from her clawed hands.

Lilli stared at the white fire that enveloped her hands, her face growing into a wicked smile. “This is...what it feels like, huh?”

She curled her fingers into a fist, and the soldier by her side did the same.

“Heh...this is my Persona, then...I could get used to this…”

Her Persona whipped her mace forward, and the spiked top shot forward, attached by a blazing hot chain, whipping itself around the dog. It let out the tiniest whimper before being launched in the air, twisting in the air and landing on its side. Away from me. I slowly stood up, still kind of shook up, and let Puck come to my side again - he was strangely quiet when I got tackled, but I guess Lilli’s...it took up my attention.

Lilli looked at the dog still struggling to stand up.

“ **Crush it** , Hippolyta.”

Hippolyta let out a dry, heavy, metallic chuckle, then whippped her morningstar up behind her and brought it back down, blazing hot. It landed straight on the stomach of the dog, leaving behind a massive, splintered crater in his body, blood splattering over the snow-covered ground.

The other dog behind her slowly stood up, still wounded from the giant hole in its side left by Lilli’s boot, and, without even looking, Hippolyta whipped behind her and grabbed it, the hot chains searing the dog’s ceramic skin, and threw it against the ground in front of her. The impact left it struggling to stand, let alone lay on the ground.

Hippolyta strided forward, aimed a spiked heel at the dog’s face, and kicked directly downward, spearing it’s eye socket squarely. A geyser of blood erupted from it’s already bleeding face.

Lilli smiled at the carnage. “You got any other pieces of shit to throw at me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for this being posted late, but I really want to get an 'every-eight-days' posting schedule up and running. I hope Lilli's Persona made up for it!


	16. Worried Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the bad cliffhanger. I wanted to include the fight scene, but if I sat down and wrote it this would've been uploaded, like, four hours later. See you in 8 days!  
> tumblr: http://waggletonpt.tumblr.com  
> email: waggletonpt@gmail.com

I stared at Lilli for however long I stared at her for. Hippolyta was still standing tall beside her, holding her morningstar to her side, before she channeled whatever magic she had into the wooden staff. It burned up in a column of fire, and she seemingly sucked in the ash through her gauntlets before it drifted to the ground.

Lilli stood slumped over, breathing heavy, slightly limp and seemingly out of it. I remembered how I felt when Puck came to me...or, rather, how I didn’t feel. I pretty much fainted right away, didn’t I? 

I tried to stand up and gain my footing on the snowy ground, which took a little bit of balancing, edged my way around the giant dog’s corpse, and ran towards Lilli.

“Are you feeling alright?”

She coughed, looked at her hand, and wiped whatever was on her palm on her black jeans, leaving a dark red streak. “Yeah, hell yeah, I’m fine.”

Raul unsteadily rose up, eyes wide with fear, bulging with red veins. He stood still for a second, apparently catching his breath, then stumbled over himself, stood over the corpse of the dog that was gnawing on him, and kicked it repeatedly, breaking more and more of it’s ceramic skin away. He fell backwards, exhausted.

“Man, that felt...woah.” Lilli doubled over slightly and flexed her fingertips. “Shit, can we kill more stuff?”

I grimaced, and I felt Puck’s shame wash over me. 

“You...you have one...you have one too? Is that what those are?” Raul coughed and unsteadily got up, walking over to the two (four) of us? “A...Persona...huh…”

“Yeah! Check it,” Lilli chuckled, and Hipployta kneeled down, flexed her fingers, and flicked Raul in the side of the head with fingers the size of pipes.

“Ow! Hey, that hurt!”   
“That’s now what they’re for!” I protested, before feeling one of her spiked gauntlets poke me in the forehead. “Hey!”

Lilli laughed, and Hippolyta glanced down at her. She got flicked on the head by her Persona, reeled back, and grumbled something.

Raul rubbed the side of his head, walked away from our dumbassery, glanced mournfully at his broken camera bag - and the camera inside, and leaned down to pick up the two pictures that he had managed to print out. “Well, we got these, at least...where’s Sam?”

“Ah, right here!” He poked his masked head out of the side of the open spiked doors. “Those beasts looked awfully dreadful, and I wanted to keep my hide safe…”

Raul grabbed the neck of his shirt, stared at the claw marks that tore right through the fabric, and groaned a little bit, mostly under his breath. “Alright, let’s go.”

“We’re going into the fort?”

Raul glanced back at me. “Yeah, where else? Right into Cerebus’ chewing maw.”

I thought for a second, not sure what it meant, but just gave up and walked with him. Puck floated ahead, and Lilli and Hippolyta caught up with us. Unlike Puck, Hipployta simply walked forward, with her large, spiked heels displacing snow and dirt with every step.

We turned into the wide, open doors, and saw the impossibly large inside - what looked like rows and rows of pale blue snow-covered camp tents, with black figures scurrying about. There wasn’t any kind of horn or siren playing, like there used to be - I guess they assumed that the dogs would take care of it. The only real building was a large, concrete complex in the far distance - a tall building with two square-ish wings on either side, with a blood-red medical cross inset on the tall middle. 

Raul let out a short groan. “Of course.”

“Huh?”

He narrowed his eyes before walking forward into the camp. “It’s...nothing. Think we can get out through there?”

I glanced around, at the tall, concrete walls, the occasional white canopies and black shadows that ran around on the top of the ramparts, the occasional metal clicking and cold wind blowing. All the black blobs seemed to move in time to an unheard drum beat, like Taps or something, all an equal distance from each other. 

“Listen, uh,” I whispered to the three other people, though I was still surprised when they turned their heads, apparently actually paying attention to me. “Uh...this is a military base, I think...right?”

“Yeah, it is.” Raul said, deflated.

“I...I don’t think we should, just...run in...I mean, they have guns, probably automatic rifles of some kind, battle rifles...I think the guys on the ramparts, they, uh, might have DMRs or...I mean, we’re some kind of sitting ducks if we were to just run in…”

“Those...all sound dangerous…” Samuel said, his voice wavering.

“Yeah, and…” I looked at the banners around the inside of the compound. The writing still looked like...not-quite Hangul, with circles and lines and squares that seemed to drift around the fabric like petals on water. The backdrops were red on white, with strong-looking yet completely faceless men with what looked like flags and swords on the backdrop. I started putting the pieces together in my head.

“Uh, this is...North Korean or South Korean?”

Raul glanced at the inside again, then let his head hang. “Christ. It’s North Korean.”

“So...they use Russian hand-me-down RK’s - they call them Type H4’s...those are usually chambered in 7.62x39mm, those pack a fair punch...uh...none of you have Kevlar, do you?”

The three of them stared at me like I was talking crazy. I probably was.

“L-look, we...we should just...getting shot isn’t like video games, you  _ will _ go down, and we shouldn’t risk it…”

“So you think we should just go stealth and shit? Why don’t we just kill them all?” Lilli leaned back against the concrete wall, with Hippolyta’s brass fingers growing red and hot.

“There’s four…” Raul began, before his eyes met with Puck’s, sitting on one of the spikes. “Uh, there’s six of us and, I don’t know, a couple hundred soldiers - I think....we’d still get shot.”

Samuel put his finger to his maks’s chin, in a crude impersonation of a thinking person. “Well, why don’t we use whatever magic you use last time? Didn’t you create a shield out of a flower?”

“I...I don’t know how strong that’d be.”

“Flower shields?”

Puck, in response to Raul’s question, poked at him with vines sprouting from the ground.

“Ah! Shit! Can’t you tell that thing to stop messing around?”

I shrugged.

Lilli and Hippolyta turned away from us. She poked her head around the corner of the concrete wall. “Tents are pretty flammable, huh?”

“What?”

She backstepped until Hippolyta was the only one in the entranceway.

“Wait!” I grabbed her sleeve. “What in the hell are you doing?”

“Gonna set ‘em on fire, then we can run through it while everything’s burning.”

“Lilli! You dumbass!” Raul tried to pull her back. “We’re trying to sneak through it! What if they have more of those dogs?!”

“I’ll crush ‘em.”

Hippolyta kneeled down, and her right hand grew blazing hot. Embers surrounded her fist, before it sprouted into a column of blazing fire.

“No! Wait!”

Lilli looked towards me. I could see the veins from her neck grow purple. 

“Wh-what if the tents have ammunition in them? They’d cook off and go off and we’d get hit with the shrapnel?”

“C-cook off?” She said, her voice straining from the pressure.

“Like, they’d fire and go everywhere!”

“That’s not a bad idea…” She turned her focus back to Hippolyta, matching her kneeled and bent-over posture exactly. Her Persona morphed the column of fire into a slightly curved shape, and shot out a small bolt of flame from her other wrist, before combining the two into a blazing facsimile of a bow-and-arrow, sculpted from fire. She seemingly charged it, the bolt growing brighter and hotter, embers and sparks flying from it. I felt the heat on my face, and Lilli’s forehead grew shiny with sweat. The snow around Hippolyta began to melt into steam. Samuel turned away, shielding his eye-holes on his mask, and Raul brought his own arm up to shield himself from the heat.

“FIRE!”

On Lilli’s command, Hippolyta let the arrow fly.

It shot through the air like a cruise missile, with fiery tendrils shooting off of it and hitting absolutely everything it came in contact with - snow, tents, black shadows - creating a slow yet powerful inferno that began to consume the camp. I heard shouting as the blaze crackled and roared, seemingly in triumph, the soldiers inside yelling commands in a completely gibberish language that sounded like dying goats. There was the telltale cracks of Russian rifles sounding, followed by the booms of ammunition being roasted and firing.

I saw muzzle flashes pointed at us.

“Get down!” I screamed, pulling Lilli aside and aiming my fall backwards on Raul, hoping our combined weight would toss him down as well. 

“Puck!”

He heard my call, and, like before, brought up a large shield made of the ground below. It sprouted up in a perfect rectangle, permafrosted soil and broken rock. My body felt the reverberations of each bullet and rocket that hit the side, but it felt like hail or pebbles that bounced off my skin. Through his eyes I saw the fire that was rapidly consuming the base, a mass that was dancing in hues of orange and blues. Hippolyta was crouched behind the wall, looking awful - she looked like she was slowly dissolving into ash, floating away in the air, clutching her chest and trembling with either anger or death. She brought out her hand, creating a  orb of fire that was seemingly golden in color, concentrating all of her energy into it, and Puck and I saw the fire grow dim, before gathering itself into a central column in the center of the camp and flying up and over the wall, into Hippolyta’s hand. The inside of the base was in ruins.

I looked over at Lilli, on the ground next to me. Her cashew-colored skin was paler than I’ve ever seen it, breathing heavy and staring blankly forward.

Hippolyta was still dissolving, and, I suppose, with her last amount of energy, kicked straight through the wall of earth. It crumbled almost instantly - I felt Puck’s energy fading the longer I had it up - and Hippolyta reached into the base, and pulled out a squirming, gas-masked soldier, clad in a beige winter coat, kind of like traditional Russian soldier wear during WW2, and, with a single movement, cracked his skull like a grape. Black blood fell to the ground, along with pieces of the gas mask. Hippolyta let the body fall before fading away, becoming pure ash that floated into the wind.

Sam looked at me, his black eyes shimmering with what I could only guess was excitement. “That was fun!”

I groaned and tried to sit up. “Ugh...I guess.”

“What the hell was that?!” Raul rubbed the part of his chest where I elbowed him down. “I...I fucking...I hate this place, oh my God…”

Lilli was silent, on her side, her arm slightly twitching and spasming. 

“Hey...hey!” I rubbed Lilli’s arm. “Are you okay?”

“What happened to her?”

I turned to Raul, trying to come up with an answer. I remembered what happened last time...the first time, really…”Maybe she...overexerted…I don’t know…”

Lilli wasn’t moving. Raul elbowed himself in, placing a hand on her neck, pressing down. “She...kind of has a pulse…”

“Kind of?”

Samuel reached down and picked her up, like it was no big deal, carrying her like a bride. “Well, we’ll find a way to help her, right?”

“Jesus! Dude, she weighs, like, 220! How’re you?”

“Oh...am I not supposed to…”

“What? No, no, you’re...you can, I guess…”

“Ah! Splendid! Anyway, let us move on, we must find an exit.”

I nodded in agreement. Puck floated down from his place on the wall -  he sat on the edge of the tall concrete to get a good view of the fire, I guess - letting me look at him. He was somewhat alright, I guessed. I felt good and ready to go. I guess I just shouldn’t summon trees like last time. Walls are alright.

Lilli made a ‘nguh’ noise as Samuel carried her around. Dude was  _ strong _ . It kind of freaked me out.

We walked up to the walls, but I took a moment to search the body of whatever soldier was pulled through the gates by Hippolyta. He was another one of those...monster...things, and it kind of gave me comfort that I didn’t have to see an innocent person serving their country to get unceremoniously killed like that. I pat him down, with no effect, since I was basically and unconsciously recreating the pat-down animation from  _ The Dead Live _ . I just turned the body over in the end, and, to my surprise, there was a long rifle attached to his back with seemingly nothing. I pried it off his coat with little resistance, and investigated it.

I hated it.

“Holy shit, that’s a gun.”

I turned to Raul, trying to conceal my frustration. “Hell no, it ain’t! Look at it!” I studied it further. For one thing, it was obviously an attempt at creating an RK-AM, but it’s proportions were all  _ wrong _ . The barrel was just a single tube connected to a small wooden foregrip without any of the usual indentations, or even any signs of machination and creation. No serial number, no screws, nothing. There wasn’t even the usual hole in the middle to let the barrel cool, nonetheless a gas vent on the top. The sight was just a crude triangle slightly slanted forward, and there wasn’t any muzzle break. It just sort of stopped. The receiver sucked as well, probably even more so, since it was just basically a metal rectangle with small screws that weren’t even in the right place. There were two (!) ejection ports on either side, without any sort of mechanism to switch between them - not even mentioning that the standard issue RK-AM wasn’t even ambidextrous, and you had to get a third party modification to make it left-handed. The rear sights were just two metal cubes sticking up, without any Pictanny rails or basically  _ anything _ for another sight, which I would  _ much _ prefer to have. The “grip” was just a single block of wood that stuck down, without any kind of beveling on it’s corners to make it the  _ least _ bit comfortable, without any trigger guard - just a single, somewhat curved trigger in it’s place. The banana magazine was curved to an almost cartoonish extent, without any kind of ribbing or indentations to help facilitate reloading, and there wasn’t even a magazine catch or a button to release it. I was surprised it was still in as I turned it around to inspect it. The stock was the most insulting part of it all, being just a wood triangle that stuck out a little bit behind. 

I grumbled with frustration, then shut up in horror. I released I just spent the last five minutes airing my grievances out loud without noticing. Raul was staring at me in a kind of shocked suprise, and Sam just stared at me, apparently waiting.

“Uh...yeah. It’s a gun.”

“Ugh, shut up. It ain’t.”

“If you hate it so much, why are you keeping it?”

I shrugged. Better than nothing.

Our group walked into the entrance of the now-dead camp. We were surrounded by bodies, charred black, the broken and burnt remains of tents, and dirt that had been scorched free of snow. Bullet casings littered the ground, alongside black blood and a few actual rifle bullets that had seemingly fallen in the air. 

I stared forward at the concrete hospital. Hippolyta’s arrow had struck it, leaving a giant impact in the front that still burnt with embers.

Raul put his hand forward, stopping me in my tracks. I tried to focus my eyes on the hospital in the distance.

The crack in the hospital walls grew, breaking more and more of the wall off. I heard what must’ve been rushing water, but with a disgusting thick sound to it. Samuel started backing away slowly, and Lilli opened one of her eyes.

The wall gave way, and a sudden surge of black oil came bursting out of the hospital, flowing to the ground and slowly flowed forward. Bolts of electricity danced on the black, solidified surface, and a searchlight shone from the dark inside. Four spider-like legs sprouted from the nether, and out came the monster.


	17. Dead Eyes See No Future

It looked like some kind of...I…

The monster’s head was a blank mannequin head, completely featureless and grey, with only a large, metal, circular eye in the middle. It’s body was obscured by some kind of cloak, some kind of circular fabric with symbols and letters that glowed and danced on the surface, and the only thing I could see underneath were four long, jointed legs, apparently made out of greyed, bolted-together wood. It didn’t have any feet, instead, each leg ended in a long, spear-like metal tip. I couldn’t see much, since it was so far away.   
The monster crawled out of the hole in the hospital like a marionette spider, shoving it’s metal-tipped legs into the concrete walls, crawling up the side like a kaiju. It reached the roof, stood completely still, and it’s ‘eye’ turned on. The glass of its eye slowly brightened from a light within, and the monster started searching the decimated camp for...something, using the enegy from it’s eye as a directed spotlight.

It swept the rows of corpses and burned tents in long sweeps, and I tried to follow it with my eyes. Then I realized we were the only things alive in the camp.

“Shh!” I tugged Raul’s shirt. “Get down!”

Raul did as I said almost instantly, and the two of us ducked behind a scorched metal frame. Samuel, still carrying Lilli, tried his best to kneel down.

“I-Is that...the...the monster you guys were talking about?” Raul glanced above us, nervously.

Lilli rustled in Sam’s arms. She looked up lazily, and her eyes snapped open once she saw Sam’s face. “Hey! Wh-who the hell…”

“Oh, you’re awake!” Sam announced. He let go of Lilli as softly as he could - but she still ended up tumbling a few inches, landing on the ground.

Raul leered. “Good morning.”

“Hey! Shh!” I frantically shushed them all down, flapping my hands like a kindergarten teacher before picking up the rifle again.“Lilli! Look! Is that the monster?”

Lilli rubbed the back of her head for a second before glancing forward, freezing in place.

“U-uh...I think…”

“Is that thing as huge as I think it is?” Raul peeked up above the metal frame again. His breathing had slowed, if the clouds from his mouth were any indication. “And...we have to take it down…”

“It’s legs are...spindly…” I whispered, mostly to myself. I remembered that one scene in...whatever movie it was...where they used cords to make those big robot walkers trample over themselves…

The monster, I guess, had finished it’s preliminary scan. It turned off it’s light and began crawling downwards from the hospital’s walls. It moved much more quickly now, like a cornered brown recluse, and it’s posture had changed from standing upright on all four legs to crouching low and near the ground, skittering around the black blood-covered campground. Each step it took created electricity, sparks and arcs of lightning that danced on the ground before dying in the cold air.

“Is that...static electricity, or…”

Samuel peered over the metal pipes with Raul. “Oh, hm...is it conducting it with the tips of it’s legs? Or is it just a constant discharge?”

“Who cares?” Lilli unsteadily sat up. “I’ll just take it out, like, like how I did a few seconds ago?”

“Are you feeling okay? I-I don’t think you can just keep summoning them…” I said, a bit unsure. I didn’t know the first thing about using them, either, honestly...as I flexed my fingers, I could feel the white fire fading. Whatever that meant. I had let Puck go earlier, and I didn’t think I could bring him back just now…

“Lilli, chill! Don’t blow our cover!” Raul agreed, motioning for her to sit back down.  
“Come on, let’s get this out of the way…” She stood up and cracked her knuckles. “Hey! Asshole! We’re right he-”

I glanced up from behind her back. The entire camp was empty.

“Hey! Where’d yo-”

[ **ʜᴇʟʟᴏ.** ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNgWfYcd4qc)

The four of us whipped our heads around. The Monster was glaring at Raul as iit stood on the wall behind us.

It greeted our group by thrusting one of it’s legs towards Raul, landing only inches away from his feet.

“SCATTER!”

I don’t know who made the command - or if it was actually me - but I followed it without hesitation. I ran down the rows to the left of our hiding spot, almost tripping in the snow and my own shoelaces, with a death grip on the rifle in my hands.

**ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ʀᴜɴ. ɪᴛ ᴍᴀᴋᴇs ᴛʜɪs sᴏa ᴍᴜᴄʜ ʜᴀʀᴅᴇʀ ғᴏʀ ᴇᴠᴇʀʏᴏɴᴇ.**

I only glanced back once I was a good distance from everything. The monster had poised it’s back legs on the wall, with it’s front two spears slowly crawling forward on the ground towards Raul, who was a couple of rows away. Samuel was on the fa back wall, against the concrete. Lilli was the only one standing her ground.

**ᴏʜ, ɢᴏᴏᴅ. ᴏɴᴇ ᴏғ ʏᴏᴜ ɪs ᴄᴏᴍᴘʟʏɪɴɢ.**

“Shut up!”

I yelled something at her that I didn’t hear.

She stood back and began...focusing, I think, but her Persona was silent. The monster lunged at her, dragging a blade across the ground and creating an eruption of sparks and crackling lightning, following it up with a quick jab at her stomach. I couldn’t see much, but what I did see was bad. Horrible. A jet of red and a falling figure.

I ran.

I lost track of the monster as I ran towards Lilli’s body, only for it to crawl from the outside of the camp, through the open, spiked gates.

**ʜᴇʟʟᴏ.**

I fumbled around my pants, trying to find the pocket for the baton, or wherever I hooked it...oh, God…

I saw the spider rear up for an attack, it’s metal javelin tip glittering in the winter sun. I fell backwards on myself, closing my eyes, feeling the fire burn up inside me…

Puck came from the ether and delivered a kick to the underside of the skull, but the monster only recoiled a bit from the impact...but it still…

I saw it’s body flicker a bit, like an out-of-wack CRT monitor, and it disappeared into sparks and small bits of cloth. Behind it was Lilli, standing upright, without any blood, looking confused.

‘What the...what the hell...you’re okay?”

I was silent. Still shocked.

“You both are...fine?” I heard Samuel say. He slowly crept towards us.

“What? Yeah! I’m good! That thing was chewing her up!”

“I thought it...killed you…”

Four legs came down on either side of us. Electricity coursed through the metal bolts in its skin, creating a cage of pure lightning.

**ᴛʜᴀᴛ's ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ ᴏғ ʏᴏᴜ. ɴᴏᴡ sᴛᴏᴘ ʀᴜɴɴɪɴɢ.**

The spider’s head flipped upside down, giving the three of us a view of it’s glass, camera lens-like eye. It spun and calibrated itself with mechanical whirring, before returning to its upright stance.

“Hey! Let them go!” Raul yelled, standing in the middle of the two rows of burned tents.  “I’m right here!”

I heard the monster’s neck whirr, turning it’s eye towards Raul. He was holding a metal pipe, broken free from a tent.

**ᴏʜ, ɢᴏᴏᴅ, ɪ'ᴠᴇ ғᴏᴜɴᴅ ʏᴏᴜ. ᴡᴀᴛᴄʜ ᴄʟᴏsᴇʟʏ.**

The electricity keeping us confined began to intensify with blue, drawing in sparks from the air around us. A tendril of lightning shocked my arm, making me flinch down.

The cage discharged in an eruption of blue and white, like a bursting tesla coil, and my vision went white. My ears rang for a solid second. I was sure something happened to me...to us…

Then my eyes went back to normal. I was fine. Lilli was fine. Samuel was a bit shaken.

Raul was staring at us with wide, empty eyes.  
**ʟᴏᴏᴋ ᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴀᴛ. ɢᴏɴᴇ, ᴊᴜsᴛ ʟɪᴋᴇ ʜᴇʀ. ʏᴏᴜ ᴄᴀɴ ᴊᴏɪɴ ᴛʜᴇᴍ, ɪғ ʏᴏᴜ ʟɪᴋᴇ.**

He fell to the ground, letting the pipe go. A blue spotlight shone on his sobbing figure, a slowly tightening circle.

“What the hell? That was nothing!” Lilli yelled.

“Raul? Raul!” Samuel reached through the electric bars, before turning his masked face to me and Lilli. “H-he must think we’re dead from the blast! Like how you two…”

Lilli stared blankly at the snow. “Right, how it looked like you just got...impaled, or somethin…”

I tried to excise the thought of Lilli’s blood from my mind. “How can we…”

“How’d you do it last time?”

Puck gave him a kick on the upside of the head, right?

I focused for a second, trying to get Puck back, and like before, he emerged from the ether, standing cramped in the middle of us three. It was the closest I’ve ever seen him before. His skin was like vinyl, like a cheap super hero costume.

He stared up at the monster’s body from beneath, then delivered a kick to the underside - where all four of his leg joints connected. It bounced off harmlessly.

“Do the wood thing!” I commanded.

Puck nodded, and I stood as far as I could from the center. I envisioned some kind of...smaller tree coming out. Not like last time.

I held in my breath for a second, and let go. A spire came from beneath, a spike of frost-covered wood that shot from up beneath us straight up to the monster’s underside. I felt the wood shoot through ceramic skin, but it felt like it only went through three or so inches...not the complete obliteration that happened to the monster in Lilli’s mind.

Still, it worked. The spider recoiled slightly, and the electricity around us weakened. I felt it with my back hand, and it was completely harmless - a slight tickle. Lilli and Samuel passed through with me, and I let the wood spike dissipate back into the ground. It let the spider go, but it was better than wasting my energy.

“Raul! Get up! We’re fine!”

**ɪ sᴇᴇ ʏᴏᴜ'ʀᴇ ғɪɢᴜʀɪɴɢ ɪᴛ ᴏᴜᴛ. ᴛʜᴀᴛ's ɴᴏᴛ ɪᴅᴇᴀʟ.**

The spider went back down into it’s crouched stance, skittering away from the three of us.

“Julie! Shoot it!” Lilli elbowed me.

“Why?”

“Potshots! Come on!”

I nodded, trying to aim the shit rifle as best I could with it’s garbage sights. I placed the front sight on the spider, and squeezed the trigger - it felt like it had the trigger pull of a dart gun, but it’s not time to complain.

Bullets started hitting the back of the spider’s head, resulting in bullet holes that oozed black blood! Penetration! Yeah! I felt myself smile a bit as I kept firing the surprisingly recoil-less gun.

“The head seems to be the weak spot! Keep using whatever that thing is!”

“Yeah, no shit!” Lilli shouted, before looking over at Raul’s still-slumped figure. “Keep it distracted, I’m gonna grab him!”

I nodded in agreement without even hearing what she said. The repeated crack of the gun filled my ear drums with the same pleasure that the school bell and an end-of-round win sound brought.

The monster turned it’s head towards me and started skittering towards the row of tents me and Samuel were in.

I kept plugging rounds into it’s head, but as it approached, more and more of them were grazing. None of them hit it’s mechanical eye.

The monster shoved a spear-tipped leg forward, only barely missing my chest, but I still flinched on reflex. Then I saw it re-emerge from behind me.

**ʜᴇʟʟᴏ.**

“Behind you!” Raul yelled.

I realized that.

I tripped over a stray piece of cloth when I tried to run forward. The rifle fell only a few inches in front of me, and was soon sliced in half by one of the spider’s arms. I twisted around behind me to see another leg poised directly at my heart.

**ɪᴛ's ɴᴏᴛ ᴀ ᴛʀɪᴄᴋ ᴛʜɪs ᴛɪᴍᴇ.**

Raul threw the pipe at the creature’s head. It bounced off harmlessly, but it still managed to get it’s attention. I felt a yank on my sweatshirt, pulling me away - Samuel, probably - he meant well, but it dragged me through the rocky snow and soil more than a few feet.

As it made it’s way towards Raul, a snowball hit it’s head from the other direction.

“There’s four of us! What are you going to do?” Screamed Lilli.

**ᴛʜᴀᴛ's ᴀ sɪʟʟʏ ǫᴜᴇsᴛɪᴏɴ. ɪ'ʟʟ ᴋɪʟʟ ʏᴏᴜ.**

“Not if we kill you first!”

**ɪɴᴛᴇʀᴇsᴛɪɴɢ.**

It reared up two of it’s legs on opposite sides, standing on the remaining two. Each leg’s spear split open down the middle, and two long, thin needles shot out, crackling with electricity.

Puck formed again. I felt my control over him slowly draining, but he still was ready to fight - bouncing his legs in the air, with a mischievous grin on his face. The electric needles didn’t seem...good, but I had to get in this shot. If I could...maybe slice him in half with something, down his head…

“Go!”

Puck flew forward, and I felt what could only be described as a bone growing from my palm. A purple flower petal slowly formed from his wrist, as thin as paper and rigid as metal, and he lunged forward with a single swipe.

The monster, without looking, impaled him on a needle, and I felt the most intense pain shoot through my abdomen. Electricity coursed through my bones and my guts, frying everything it came in contact with like a raging fire. My blood boiled and jumped, my veins slowly shorted out and died, all of my limbs, my fingers, my eyes, began twitching wildly in pain. I fell down, feeling almost dead - or absolutely dead. Puck dissipated into a cloud of white and green flower petals that flew into the wind before disintegrating. I felt my life go with it.

Someone yelled my name. I clutched my stomach with my hands, my last conscious thought before pain overtook my mind. After a second the shock was gone, and was able to weakly gaze forward, at what I could only assume was a massacre.

**ɪ ᴋɪʟʟ ᴏɴᴇ, ᴀɴᴅ ᴀɴᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ɢᴏᴇs ᴅᴏᴡɴ ᴀs ᴡᴇʟʟ. ɪɴᴛᴇʀᴇsᴛɪɴɢ.**

The spider's arm became short - the needle must've went down. 

I saw Lilli stand forward, up at the monster, no fear in her posture or her voice.

"You're not done!"

**ᴄᴏʀʀᴇᴄᴛ.**

It lunged forward with the other electric needle, before teleporting again - this time, to it's crouched position. The needle went up and forward. It caught Lilli from underneath her shirt, the needle going straight through her collar - I thought it had killed her again before my eyes gained focus. The air grew static with charged energy. I got goosebumps on my arm.

The monster lifted up it's arm - maybe to slam her back down against the snow. I winced, shielding my eyes.

There was an eruption of black blood.

Hippolyta stood above Lilli, cradling her user in her arms. In her other hand was a flaming blade. On the ground was one of the spider's arms.

**ʜᴇʟʟᴏ.**

Hippolyta let Lilli on the ground and sheathed her flaming sword, absorbing the ash, and creating her wooden mace. She beckoned the spider forward, and it obliged, lunging forward with two of it's three remaining legs. 

The Persona ducked down, underneath the needles, and swung forward with the mace - right into the beasts's eye, shattering it into a million pieces of glass and crystal dust. It swung again onto the head of the monster, creating a dent the size of a lamp post into it's skull. It screeched inhumanely - more like a dying computer - and recoiled back into a crouched position, bleeding profusely. It kept striking again, and again, but each blow bounced harmlessly from Hiippolyta's armor. She walked, confidently, towards the spider's body. It slowly backed down and down, as each of it's weakened hits had no effect.

Hippolyta let her mace fly of, revealing the chain it had inside, and swung it around the monster, going wide until it hit it's neck and coiled around. She brought the mace down, and the chain - and monster - with it. 

The spider coiled it's legs up, defeated and scared. She walked toward it, grabbed a length of chain in each arm, and pulled, tugged at it. The monster's head bled and bled, the snow becoming coated in black blood that sprung like water from the multiple bullet holes in it's head, until, eventually, it popped like a water balloon. Blood coated the concrete wall like an explosion of paint. 

The monster dissolved into black. It had died.

All the blood melted and dissipated into nothing, and the snow with it. Then the camp. The concrete walls and burnt tents and bodies melted into the ground like they were never even there, and only lush, green grass remained. I saw a few flowers sprout around my body, and I slowly got up to discover I was bleeding slightly. 

The sky was blue, the color of the ocean around Lydon, and seemed to ripple like water. I noticed foamy white waves in the sky, the sihoullets of whales and fish, seagulls...this was an orb of grass in a sky of water. It felt amazing. 

Raul stared at everything, before turning to me. He gave me a hand, and I took it.

"Let's go home."

"Yeah."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally got this done! I liked writing this chapter, since I was worried about how it'd turn out. I had almost nothing planned for it, but a lot of stuff came gradually as I wrote. Sometimes improvisation works!  
> tumblr: http://waggletonpt.tumblr.com  
> email: waggletonpt@gmail.com


	18. Felt Just Like Vacation

Sam lead us through the grass planet to what looked like a door, lined with a small strip of light. “Here. I believe we can depart now.”

“Finally…” Raul groaned. I couldn’t help but agree. The three of us were tired and worn out by everything, and we looked like we had just gone through Hell. My shirt and hoodie was covered in soot, and there were very obvious claw marks in the fabric that had somehow just only scraped the top bit of skin instead of disemboweling me like they should.

The moment we walked through the door, my phone came alive in my pocket with vibrations. 

Shit.

I whipped it out immediately, scanning the notifications with my tired and dulled-feeling eyes. I had already told Rowan that I was gonna hang out with Lilli after school to study, and, I mean, that wasn’t entirely false. It was only 17:00, around that time, so it didn’t feel super late, but I couldn’t help but fear that he was five seconds away from calling the cops and my mom to take me home. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do that, yet. Thankfully, it was all just questions on how I was doing, if I was having fun, and about three reminders to be home by 19:00. I had two hours left...thank God. Though I wanted to go home as soon as I could.

After I caught my breath, I took a quick look around the theater. The first thing I saw was Raul’s bag on the floor, the one we didn’t bring with us for whatever reason. Lilli had already slumped backwards on the floor, spread out and looking fairly - well, completely - out of it. Raul was just standing still before slowly sinking to his feet, sitting upright with his knees close and looking at the hard wood. I think I felt the most intact out of everyone, and I wasn’t sure if I was okay with that. Aside from a few residual shocks now and then, I think I was kind of fine.

I sat down next to Raul and made an attempt to ask if he was okay, but once I saw the glazed-over, kind of distant look he had, I didn’t have the heart.

“Ah, that...could’ve gone better…”

The three of us looked behind at Sam. He was standing still, but looking down at his feet, for some reason.

“I remember saying how much use I would be this time…but I only ended up being in the way...ha, I guess I shouldn’t bother coming in next time, if I can’t provide any assistance…” 

“What’re you saying, Samuel? You did fine.” Raul reassured. 

“I don’t think I did much...other than knowing when to get out of the way…I only feel like a tool to work the Orchestra, and not...oh…”

“He okay?”

“You’re doing fine, Sam. You don’t know much about these places either, right? You’re learning like us.”

Samuel stayed silent at Raul’s comment. He slowly moved to the three of us. “That, I think, is the fundamental problem…”

We stayed silent for a few moments.

“May I tell you all a secret?”

I nodded.

“I...do not have any memories of myself...or this place...I often feel like I was. I do not know how I can play the Orchestra, or what this place is...aside from it being my mother - I was born here, I believe. It all scares me...I don’t know what I am…”

Lilli’s head fell back on the floor, but me and Raul stayed attentive.

“You see, when I’m alone, I tend to think about things...and...it always feels strange and...it makes me scared, sometimes…” Samuel craned his head back up, at the ceiling, then the Orchestra, then at the three of us. “Do you think you could come back more often? I promise I’ll keep thinking, a-and thinking of ways to assist on the excursions. I don’t want to be alone as much as I have been…”

Lilli pulled her torso up, leaning on her elbow. “Yeah, dude. I wanna find more ‘bout this place, too.”

“I-I think I can try to, I think I can come back…” I offered a weak smile.

“We’re in this together, Sam. Uh, we’ll be leaving soon, but I’ll try to bring everyone back before the end of the week.” Raul stood up and put out his hand, again. Sam grabbed it, and the two stood still again.

“That sounds great! What’s a week?”

“Uh...well, we’ll be back soon. You can count on it.

I felt a kind of...warm boiling inside my body again, seeing Samuel try his best, and...seeing him seemingly spill his guts to us. 

My brain got shocks again, the world turned into every color, then black and purple. It stood still for a year, and before I could realize what was going on, I heard that...voice inside my head again.

Ｉ ａｍ Ｔｈｏｕ， ａｎｄ Ｔｈｏｕ ａｒｔ Ｉ   
  
Ｔｈｏｕ ｈａｓ ｃｒｅａｔｅｄ ａ ｎｅｗ ｂｏｎｄ， ａ ｓｉｇｎ ｏｆ ｐｅａｃｅｆｕｌ ｑｕｉｅｔ ｉｎ ｔｈｉｓ ｒｅｓｔｌｅｓｓ ｗｏｒｌｄ．．．   
  
Ｔｈｒｏｕｇｈ ｔｈｅ ｐｏｗｅｒ ｏｆ ｔｈｅ 

Ｆｏｒｔｕｎｅ Ａｒｃａｎａ， ｔｈｏｕ ａｒｔ ｏｎｅ ｓｔｅｐ ｃｌｏｓｅｒ ｔｏ ｅｎｄｉｎｇ ｔｈｅ ｎｉｇｈｔｍａｒｅ．

When my mind came back, Raul was slowly edging his way out of Samuel’s grip. The three of us gave our farewells and exited to the elevator. 

“Man, he’s weird…” Lilli whispered once we reached the lobby. “Is he even human? Can we trust him?”

Raul shrugged. “He’s pretty much the only person here. He’s our only lead for this place and what it is.”

“He doesn’t...he doesn’t seem, like, evil...just, kind of unsure about...he’s trying.” I mumbled. My thoughts about Samuel didn’t make a lot of sense...but, y’know, neither did he.

Lilli nodded, then examined a small bruise on her arm.

“Oh, yeah. How bad are you guys?” Raul adjusted the strap on his huge backpack. “I should probably get you a new shirt...you wanna come back to me and Lilli’s place so I can fix you up?”

“Uh...uh, no, no…” I shook my head as fast as I could at the prospect of going to another person’s bedroom at all. “I, uh, I’ll just…” I looked down at my hoodie, which looked...mostly fine...but my t-shirt was all sorts of messed up. “Uh...gimme a…”

I slowly crept back to the far corner of the room, maintaining eye contact, quickly took off my hoodie, brought my arms into my shirt, twisted the blank grey long-sleeved shirt around so the unscarred back was the front, and slipped my hoodie on again. “Ta-da! Benefits of being...uh…” I patted my collarbone, which was as close I felt comfortable to touching my absence-of-breasts in front of people. I then realized this wasn’t a joke I’d ever make. To anyone. My cheeks lit up.

“Heh, lucky.” Lilli snickered.

Raul looked confused for a second, then nodded. “Hey, as long as it works. Do you got anything you need covered up? Scars? I have first aid training.”

“Uh...no, I...I think I’m good...it’s just the one, the shock thing that got me...it hurt bad.”

“Yeah, that looked brutal. You alright now?”

I shrugged. “I...guess I’ll just stay away from electricity from now on…”

Raul nodded. The three of us pressed against the doors, and we exited into the cool, late summer air and the dimming Lydon sky that was slowly turning into sunset orange.

“Lilli told me about last time you guys did this. Do you have to get an alibi this time? You look pretty - OH SHIT!”

Raul’s outburst made me jump, and I instinctively grabbed my baton behind me. 

“I forgot they were doing this tonight! Come on!”

Raul was excitedly bouncing to the small sliver of main street that we saw from the theater, which was, for some reason, decked out in hanging strips of lights and closed off completely from cars. The smell of sweet and sugar slowly drifted in the lazy seaside air.

“Man, come on, this shit is so lame.” Lilli groaned as she slowly walked with Raul. I stood still for a moment before running up to them.

“I don’t care if it’s lame, it’s still fun.”

“Excuse me, but what are y’all doing?”

Raul smiled and turned to me. “It’s Boardwalk on Main, it’s this thing the town does near the end of the summer before school starts. It’s just a food festival Chelsea Ocean Amusements and the Lydon Boardwalk does for kids around the island and mainland that can’t make it to town for the regular season. So they have a blocked-off route from mainstreet to the park, pretty much all the fairground food on main street, and you get a discount if you’re from Heartforth county.”

“Jesus, dude. We should put you in a pastel pink polo and sell you as a fuckin’ tour guide.”

Raul rolled his eyes. “Hey, this works as an alibi, right? It’ll be a good way to unwind, too.”

We jaywalked to main street, sneaking in our way from behind the road blockers and police. Calliope music slowly filled my eardrums, as well as the music from a stage that got set up at the far end of the street. There were game stands, a bunch of different food trailers with the standard horribly unhealthy fair food - funnel cakes, donuts, cotton candy, kettle corn, soda, milkshakes, lemonade with an entire bag’s worth of sugar...I think if my mom saw this, she’d cringe herself out of existence. 

Still have to call mom.

“Man, I thought they’d cancel this...still that asshole that killed the kid running around…”

“Hey, tourist season is tourist season.”

I looked around for a second after Lilli said that. It felt like there were a fair amount of cops on the street, some with balloons, some talking to kids about presumably safety around strangers, some talking to parents, and one that looked like he had lost a bet and was dressed as a clown. Lilli quitely snapped a picture of the last one, snickering.

“You want anything, Julie?”

It took me a second to register that someone had called me by name. “Uh...a, milkshake, I guess. That’d be fine.”

Raul nodded. “No problem.” The four of us slowly migrated into a line offering ice cream and shakes and frozen, preserved stuff. I smelled deep-fried something and got kind of interested, but decided against it.

In the end, I got a cookies-and-cream milkshake, which was about the size of my upper torso. There was probably a gallon of ice cream in it! We walked to a nearby picnic table on the sidewalk, where a girl about our age was talking about whatever with her friends. She was a pretty black girl, with long brown hair and a really pretty deep-green blouse, and I kinded of wanted to...talk to her about whatever. My mind got cluttered with a lot of feelings. The moment the four of us sat down, though, she and her entourage sneered and got up. Hey, free table. Hey, broken heart.

“Man. You guys look like shit.” said the other person at the table.

Raul jumped with seemingly actual fear, then covered his face for a solid minute. Lilli started cracking up.

I looked at the stranger. My heart was already kind of doing whatever it wanted, feeling like a V-8 engine in my chest. He was white, with healthy-looking, bright skin, slender features that made him almost kind of beautiful, with sunken hazel eyes. A small shock of red hair fell from his head, the rest obscured by a deep blue hood from a sleeveless hoodie. He had on a maroon t-shirt, with some kind of pithy, almost banal slogan on it. He looked almost emotionless, or at least tired.

‘You...you fucking scared me, oh my God…” Raul laughed, then hugged the mystery stranger, who, albeit a bit surprised, returned the hug with a warm smile. 

“How was Brazil?” Lilli asked, surprisingly honest and to-the-point.

“Peru. It was fine. Still same old shit.”

Raul knowingly nodded. “Oh! Hey, this is Julie. Julie, this is Max Cohen.”

Max gave a peace sign. 

“Uh, nice to meet you! I’m…”

“You come up from Texas?”

“Uh…” I suddenly became aware of my own awful accent. “N-no, I’m...I’m from Tennessee…uh…”

“Oh. Sorry.” His voice was soft and shallow, and he spoke at what felt like a level just barely above a whisper. “My dad knows an oil dude that wants to move up here for his kids. I just guessed.”

“It’s...fine?”

He shrugged, then took a sip of the soda he had bought without us noticing. 

“Uh, since he don’t like explaining it, Max is…”

“Fucking loaded.” he finished on Lilli’s behalf. “I’m usually out socializing with the upper echelons of society and killing babies on behalf of Mammon. Sometimes I like to see how the riff-raff live.”

I stayed quiet. I didn’t know what was going on.

“Oh, don’t say that kind of crap. You’re cool.”

He shrugged. “It’d be better to be honest with it rather than just bullshitting my way around it.”

“The baby sacrificing?”

Max stared at me. “That was a joke.”

“Uh...okay…”

“Are you going to tell me why you guys look like you were on the wrong end of a kid with a pair of hedge clippers?”

Raul looked at his own shirt, then sheepishly looked away. 

“You’re hiding something,” Max noticed, then turned to me. “He does this when he’s hiding something. Be sure to write that down.”

I slowly nodded. 

“Good thing I don’t care. How long have you known these dudes?”

I stared at the two of them. It really only felt like week...so I guess a week…”A...little bit.”

“You here on vacation?”

“Uh...kind of...for a year or so...going to school...just wanted to get away from some bad mojo…”

“I’m glad you picked our fair island-sized tourist trap. Especially when we’re doing our weird festival thing that nobody else does.” he looked at the cop clown. “Actually, scratch that. I’m having the best night of my life.”

“It’s fucking great.” Lilli smirked. “Already put that in the group chat.”

“Oh, did we...add you to it, yet?” Raul pulled out his phone, messed around on it, then tapped his screen with confidence. “And...sent.” 

My phone buzzed almost immediately. “Oh, uh...I should tell Rowan to pick me up…” I texted him really quick.  **At Fair Festival**

“Rowan’s the dude you’re staying with, right? Do you want me to talk to him ab-” Raul said, before glancing nervously at Max. “Uh, nothing. You’ll be cool, right?”

I nodded.

“Hey, ‘cuz you’re here now and not tomorrow, do you wanna skip the bonfire?”

“I wouldn’t miss the Chelsea summer bonfire for the world.” Max said, in a tone indicating he’d miss it for anything.

“Well, uh…” Lilli eyed a police officer walking past us alongside a crowd of kids, then smirked. “My uncle pulled through. Got a whole fucking box of fireworks straight from Liuyang.”

I gulped. “Fireworks?”

“Hell yeah! The good Chinese kind, not the shitty sparklers you can get in Mass.”

“Awesome. Love illegal fireworks.”

Raul put to his hand to his chin. “Where’d we set them off? We almost got caught last time.”

“Our mistake last year was to light them off literally pissing distance from the bonfire.” Max reminded everyone but me.

“Fireworks? Like, big ones?”

Lilli nodded. “Uh, yeah. You ever seen the ones Hong Kong lights off during the New Year?” She put her hands a foot apart. “Literal fucking rockets.”

“Sounds...uh…”

“I got earplugs.” Raul suggested.

“N-no...I…”

I [started tearing up](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLPC0WMLynE) for some reason. I...I don’t know why. I don’t…

This was the only time in a long time I was in a public place and felt safe. I felt loved. And accepted…

Lilli was smirking at the table and talking about her shipment. Raul was laughing and chuckling at everything she said. Max...I didn’t even know him, but he looked like he had his own way of smiling through a straight mouth. I didn’t feel like an outlier at all...I felt...okay. I felt like I could trust these people with my life. I think I already had just an hour ago. Raul asked if I was okay and it took all the strength in my body to not burst into tears because it was someone other than a therapist or a counselor asking me that.

I wiped my face really quick with my hoodie’s sleeve. “I’m...I’m fine, thanks.”

It felt like the first time I was going to enjoy this year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So on New Years, I made it a resolution to update this once every 8 days, until at least May.   
> Then I thought it'd be a good idea to take a nap, and then I woke up at 6:20 or so without this chapter written. So I had to cram a bit.  
> To be honest, though, I think I did alright...it's probably my favorite chapter I've put out in a while. I've been looking for a good place to put the last song and I'm glad I found a chapter that worked.  
> Also, this marks the end of the prologue! Finally, after, like, a year! Next arc is coming up next week.


	19. The Summer Ends

####  **Tuesday, August 7th**

 

I woke up feeling like I had swallowed an entire ton of concrete. My entire body ached like hell, and the comforter over my body weighed me down against the blacktop-like mattress. I couldn’t tell if it was pain from last night or me not wanting to do anything, and it might as well been both. I tried to squirm and move my body up, but every time I tried to shift my weight or even roll over, my muscles contracted and strained, and everything hurt more than it ever did in my life. My entire body was cramping. After what felt like a month, I gave up on twisting around to see the sun and kept staring at the dawn-colored popcorn walls.

Last night was so...it was painful in more than a few ways and refreshing in a few less. The fair thing was nice even if it made me cry for some dumb, pathetic reason. The only thing that stuck out was the pain from the shock, and the dogs, and that I could still feel it so close to tearing out my throat. Being pinned didn’t remind me of good things.

I thought about going to the last day of school, but I didn’t even go there in the first place. I was registering for the next year tomorrow, and that was about it. I tried not to be afraid about it, but I would be in a shady place, surrounded by shady people and…

When I got suspended (Expelled? I didn’t even remember…) I worked at the gym my mom taught at for cash for the summer and...I guess so she could keep an eye on me. I didn’t think my dad’s place would let a 18 year old around pellet guns and poison, nonetheless would he trust me around them. I just worked the front desk and swept and a bunch of odd jobs for minimum wage. I remember having to force myself to actually enter the bathroom and the closet, and I somehow convinced myself that it was only safe when there wasn’t anyone else. I remember washing my hands and seeing a woman walk in and staring at my own reflection until she left six or so minutes later. I remember having a near-panic attack because a little cousin of mine hugged me from behind and her hand reached a bit too far up. I scared her by being scared. I hated myself for it.

I forced myself to turn over and look up at the ceiling fan. My spine and chest and everything on it felt like it was being pressed from all sides, like I was in a barrel that was being squashed. I was frozen in pain that went away slowly. I couldn’t imagine getting up.

I might as well just stay here.

My phone buzzed and I ignored it, and it went a few more times. My alarm went off, so it was at least 7. I could’ve gotten up and gone to school and I didn’t. God dammit. Why am I like this?

I heard a few taps of rain on the window. The light from the window slowly grew dim. I think I went back to sleep once or twice when I closed my eyes, because the shadow from my window was slowly creeping up the wall.

My phone buzzed one last time, and I finally willed myself up enough to get my noodle arm up and over my bed, reaching down and grasping around before managing to grab my cheap smartphone, jerking it around a bit to get it’s charger out, and glancing at the messages. One was from that tower defense game that I should uninstall. One was the invitation to the group chat, one was from Lilli.

 

**finalz over!!!! (＾-＾)旦**

**Fuck that suckd tho hurt like hell**

I sent back a thumbs up emoji, then turned to the other notification.

**Raul Douglas has invited you to EVERYBODY GOES TO HELL**

I stared at it for a good while before hitting ‘accept’.

The first thing was Lilli posting a scannable test with a solid ‘B-’ on it.

**heeelllllll yessssssss**

I turned over on my bed. **Nice job!**

Nobody responded for a bit. I noticed it was 11:00. Why does time always have to go? What I wouldn’t give for it to just stop.

A picture popped up on the bottom, typing. It looked like Max, wearing sunglasses on the beach in a...weird shirt. Like a bikini, maybe?

**we’re all very impressed by your academic prowess**

 Lilli’s avatar popped up, seemingly a really crude drawing of a nude girl with blood spilling out.

**凸-_-**

**that’s a compliment you dumbass**

**KYS**

**no**

Raul had a very clean avatar of himself, probably a school photo. **Guys, chill.**

 **Also, hey, Julie!**  

I haven’t changed my avatar since I got lead out of the school back in Tennessee. I didn’t know how to delete my world.tree account after I got seemingly everyone in the school posting horrible memes on my page, so it was still just a hastily-downloaded-and-uploaded default grey person. **Hey**

**julia could i kick lilli’s ass in a fight yes or no**

**its Julie u dumbassss**

**who cares**

She sent an image of a skeleton flipping off the viewer.

**holy shit i had that on my middle school binder**

**thanks for the memories**

**fuck off!!**

**Welcome to Hell, Julie.**

**Thanks**

**What’s the status on the fireworks, Lilli?**

**not ok rain**

**thx fukin God theyre in my garage or theyd be ruind**

**fireworks garage party let’s go**

**like turning on a car in a closed house but more fun and burning**

**God no!!!**

I put my thumb over Max’s last message.

**Is there anything else we can do?**

**I just want to stay in bed**

As I sent that, my hand went limp. I let my phone dip onto the mattress.

**you ok?**

**You wrent at school……**

**Yeah**

**Hurting but its fine**

**aight**

**We could go school shopping. I need a new camera.**

**at spectale?**

**wow nice b- worthy spelling**

**OMG**

**Yeah, at Spectacle.**

**Julie, do you want to come with? I’ll be around at, uh, thirty minutes.**

I stared at the invitation for a long time.

**Whats Spectacle?**

**Outlet mall on the mainland.**

I was about to type a response, but my phone buzzed again. Rowan calling.

I pressed answer and put it to my head.

“Hi.”

“Oh! Oh, hey, Julie. I was just wondering what’s up. Naveen said you weren’t at school today. You at home?”

“Yeah.”

“You feeling okay?”

I glanced at the weirdly dark light from the window. “Yeah.”

“Okay, okay....”

I could tell he thought I had done something stupid like drink bleach. I don’t think I gave him enough proof to say I wouldn’t. I don’t think I wouldn’t, either.

“Uh....my...friends, they’re coming over, to...uh...can I go the land? Mainland?”

“You’re...driving, right? Do they have a car?”

“Yeah. We’re going to...uh...this, outlet mall place.”

“Oh, what is it...uh, I think I know what you’re talking about...hm…”

“Can I go?”

I heard a sigh. “You know, uh...have you told your mom about your friends yet? I’m sure she’d like to hear about them, right?”

‘Uh...yeah…”

“It feels, uh...yeah, yeah, I don’t see why you shouldn’t go. But once school starts, I want to meet them, if that’s alright.”

I looked down at the hardwood. “Y-yes sir. That’s ok.”

“N-no sir. Just Rowan is fine.”

“Okay.”

‘Have fun. Let me know how it goes. I should be home in about...uh, four hours.”

“Ok.”

 **OK**.

 

I ended up in Raul’s crammed brown sedan with him, Lilli, and Max, driving more than a few miles, as well as over the ferry, listening to jazz on the radio, going into a slightly forested region and back into a small-looking town. We drove for a little bit, and I confess I was looking at my phone for the majority of the time, until we parked in a massive parking lot. I had managed to get dressed before they came, in my only other hoodie and my only tank top. I decided to zip up the hoodie before anything got shown.

The four of us got out, and I saw the mall in the distance.

But…it didn’t look like a mall. It looked like a town surrounded by a parking lot! Well, maybe a cluster of strip malls, but the buildings weren’t all uniform and in the same structure like a mall. It was like...like a tiny town, with different buildings with different aesthetics in little semi-compounds.

We started heading towards a giant archway labeled SPECTACLE 23, golden letters shining against the grey, cloud-mottled sky.

I still felt a bit achey, and a bit uncomfortable, though I couldn’t place why. It all felt...weird. Quick. Like it was happening faster and faster. Why am I here? Why did I come? I didn’t want to be here, but I wasn’t angry about it...or...I don’t…

I noticed more people leaving than coming in, I guess because they were afraid of the rain...I guess that was normal. Every once in a while, someone brushed up against me and I flinched before biting my tongue for being an idiot.

Inside was...weird. It was like a town, but...like...a mall. The buildings were connected, but they all looked like represntations of the brands and stores they sold, like a regular mall on the inside. I guess? It felt hard to describe...like...a mishmash of aesthetics and styles…it looked like it was shaped like a winged rectangle, with a big old fountain in the middle.

“You ever seen one of these before, Julie?” Raul elbowed me.

“Don’t patronize her.” Max said, gently pushing Raul from behind.

“Uh...actually, no, no...I’ve…” I sighed, stopping myself before I said something dumb and said.

“Well…” Raul pat his back pocket. “I need to get a new camera, so I need to...huh, the store’s that way…”

“What happened to it?” Max said, a bit concerned. “Was it your aunt’s?”

“No, thank God…” Raul sighed with after-the-fact relief. “But...uh...it’s complicated…” He gently flicked Lilli’s back, making her snap up from her phone, glare at Raul, before reading the situation.

“Uh, yeah, super weird.”

“Anyway, me, Lilli and Julie need to go to the camera store to figure ou-”

“Why are you abandoning me?”

Raul shut up. “No reason.”

What a dumbass!

“I call Julie. I need someone to talk to.”

Raul shrugged. “Uh, fine, but...hey, can we…”

Me and Lilli both nodded in silence.

Max raised an eyebrow, before dismissing it with a wave. “Where do you wanna go, Julie?”

I looked at the slightly-slicked cobblestone. “Uh...I don’t...I need...pencils…”

“Yeah, sure.”

The two of us walked away from Lilli and Raul, their bickering fading into the air and against the too-large crowd of people meandering about.

“You gonna spill it?”

“Huh?”

Max turned towards me. “The thing you and Lilli and Raul are hiding.”

“I...I don’t…”

He just kept looking at me.

“Uh…”

He waved his hand again. “Whatever. Art store’s over here.”

I saw a sign for a Killian’s Petite on the right. The posters on the wall advertised a lot of back-to-school stuff that I had neglected to buy.

The inside of it was like a regular Killian’s Art - wood paneling, fake-cozy feeling, carpeted, rough-carved wooden stands of stuff to catch your eye with oak stands and shelves in the back. Since it was smaller, it felt a bit more specialized. I didn’t see any model kits or the infamous wall of Christian crucifixes. Mostly just regular supplies and kid stuff.

“Can...can I ask you something?”

He shrugged.

“Is it true that you’re rich?”

He stopped walking, sighed, and pulled out the wallet from inside his coat. Inside were two photos, of a pretty blonde woman and a distinguished-looking grey-haired man, and a golden credit card.

I stared in awe.

“Yeah. Look, I don’t...really like people knowing. I don’t know why Raul straight-up said it.”

“Why not?”

He looked aside. “I don’t need a reason.”

I nodded.

He shrugged, walking towards a stack of really glurgy journals. They all had sayings on them - “DO AWESOME SH-T” “THIS IS WHY I’M EPIC” “CHRISTIAN NERDFIGHTER” “WHY I’M A SUPERHERO”

“Listen, I don’t know why Raul’s acting weird. Do you know? Since you’ve apparently known him for all of a week.”

I could only shrug, even though I wanted to tell him why.

“Yeah. Figured.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault. Raul’s always been a good dude. He’s the first person I told about being nonbinary. So, like. It just feels weird.”

I stood there for a second, trying to remember whatever he just said meant.

“You...know, right.”

“Oh! Yeah!”

They picked up a nearby pack of mechanical pencils and shook them. The way they were stacked reminded me a magazine of .308 bullets. “Yeah. Okay. So you’re cool about it.”

“Why woudn’t I be?”

They shrugged. “More people than I like aren’t.”

I thought back to the avatar they had on the group message, then cought the pencil pack they tossed at me. “You looked great in that picture you had.”

“Thanks. I look great in it.”

We walked to the counter, and they wordlessly paid with the golden card. The cashier told him to have a nice day, sir, and they flashed a peace sign as we exited.

“You sure you didn’t want a nerdfighter journal? The inside had a picture of Jesus as a superhero.”

“I’m good…” I thought for a second. He sat down on a wooden bench right next to a carved statue of Killian’s mascot, Beary Nice, and pulled out his phone, taking a quick selfie with the bear.

“Can I ask you something? What, uh…”

“Think before you ask.”

I did as they suggested. They flipped through their phone for a second. “Hey, get in. I have the bear filter on.”

“I...don’t really like my picture getting taken…”

“Me neither. Not unless it’s me. What were you going to ask?”

“It’s...nothing…”

They flipped through their phone again, quietly exhaling. “Girl. That’s all we’re going to talk about it.”

“Oh...ok…”

They looked up at me from under their hood. “Sorry. I don’t want to be rude or anything. Later, like, in a private place, I can talk about my whole terrible life story. Not now, though.”

“You...don’t have to. I don’t want to talk about mine, either.”

They took another picture with the bear, then whispered. “Look behind you.”

I glanced backwards, and watched, with some kind of horrible fascination, a woman on a concrete bench listening to something on her phone. Or...it wasn’t a phone. It looked like a little brown box. She was wearing the Killian’s uniform.

“It’s one of those ‘Bible-in-a-Box’ things they sell.”

“Oh...my god…”

“Yeah, I always try to come out inside a good Christian establishment. Either God strikes me down or the store staff tears me apart limb-from-limb. Either one is optimal.”

“Uh…”

They looked at the photos. “Alright, they should be done fucking around.”

“You think?”

“Yeah.”

Max got up from the bench and stretched their back, and started walking ahead of me. I had to jog a bit to keep up.

“So...hey, sorry again if I sounded rude. Thanks for not going weird on me.”

“Why would I?”

They just grumbled under their breath. “It’s nothing. Things could be better. They’re not. I’m tired of answering the question you were gonna ask. Not your fault.”

“Yeah...I get how that is…”

“You queer?”

I didn’t say anything.

We approached Raul and Lilli on a bench. The crowd was thinning out a bit, so it was easy to find pink and yellow heads of hair. Raul had a white bag in his lap.

“We got all the school supplies we could ever need.”

I held up my pencil box awkwardly.

Raul pulled out a box from his bag. “Check it.”

It was a camo-printed camera, apparently for hunting, advertising itself as ‘military-grade shock proof.’ I’ll be the judge of that.

“Why do you need a shockproof camera?” Max narrowed their eyes.

“No reason.”

“There’s a reason.”

Raul got up and stretched a bit. “So, anything you guys want to do? I’m ready to go home if you guys are. Need sleep for tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I need to…” Lilli rubbed a spot on her neck that was obviously bruised. She still looked tired from her Persona summoning.

We all agreed to head home.

School started in two days.

I wasn’t sure if I was ready to go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, so, first thing, I'm sorry if Max's coming out scene felt...uneventful, but whenever I write Max, I try to go for more subdued, quiet, and quick dialog and scenes, and he never really felt like the person who would have, like, a dramatic cry-out with a friend in a car or something. I came out as NB to one of my best friends in the middle of a Hobby Lobby, so that's kind of where the inspiration for this scene came.  
> Also, I'm a bit worried about one of the lines, where Max just states that they're biologically female, but, honestly, I felt that if I didn't include it, something big that was coming up would feel insulting and demeaning, both to their character and to most DFAB nonbinary folks out there. (They'd essentially get outed against their will in a bad situation, and that's not a situation I want to include in any circumstance for being all too real for many people.)  
> Honestly, I think I might just be worrying too much about it, but I don't mind people telling me I handled something poorly. I still hope people enjoy this chapter!


	20. Another Year

I heard static.

I slowly opened my eyes and adjusted my posture, laying on my bed, nestled underneath the covers, staring at the apparent source of the noise - my TV, showing the digital snowstorm of a dead channel, casting a grey, unregulated light across the rest of my midnight-hued bedroom.

My mind slowly registered what was going on. My TV had, somehow, turned itself on, and - maybe one of the wires got discconnected, I don’t know, but, either way, it was static-y.

I stared at it with tired eyes, hoping for it to turn off by it’s own. What day was it? Fuck.

Slowly, the sound of static became a peaceful drone to my ears, like a white noise machine. Which...was kind of exactly what it was. God. I want to go back to sleep.

I turned around on my back and faced the wall, closing my eyes and just tried to…

“D-D-DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL KIDDOS!”

What the…

I glanced backwards. The TV had changed channels, or something, or...flashes of terrible...things filled the screen, rapid pictures of what looked like people made of raw meat, babies hanging from the ceiling, absolutely awful and disturbingly realistic looking pictures that I could only hope didn’t belong in our world…

And then, there was that clown.

It was just as I had remembered him from however many weeks ago. No eyes, but with a mouth full of pointed teeth, red hair in a five-pointed star...some kind of weird suit...all in a playroom set.

“Good morning! Good morning! It’s your best and only friend, Mr. Ick! It’s me!”

I tried to ignore the show. I didn’t care enough to get out of bed.

“DON’T TURN AROUND! DON’T CLOSE YOUR EYES.”

I did so.

“Please, welcome me! I have so many fun things for us to do! We’ll do it! Do it!”

As he spoke, his voice changed octaves, sometimes shifting completely like he was using different voice samples. I was starting to get a bit intrigued, but I just...really didn’t care. I started kicking my legs - I probably just fell asleep watching something and kept the remote in my bed.

“Let’s do something fun! We all love fun things, like messing up someone else’s fun thing!”

There was a sudden, but nearly imperceptible shift in sound quality. I stopped noticing the residual static electricity from the old TV set.

“Sometimes you need to stop. You need to stop. You need to stop.”

His voice sounded…really different. The bright yellows and red lights that the TV screen displayed on the walls dimmed until the entire room was dark.

“Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home.”

My tiny foot finally touched cold plastic. I took a bit to dig out the little grey remote, mostly because I wanted to see where it went. But it just kept repeating. I tried to feel out the power button, pressed it, and went back to sleep.

**Thursday, August 9th**

“Julie?”

Oh, Christ.

Rowan was knocking at the door. “First day of school! Get psyched! I made pancakes!”

I wish I could say I just wanted to stay in bed all year. I didn’t want to go through last year again. I didn’t want to try my luck with what felt like loaded dice. I felt like I exuded weakness, some kind of terrible aura that told people that I wouldn’t resist.

“Julie? You up yet?”

It was surprisingly sunny outside. Everything was coated in a yellow hue.

I made a noise not unlike a ‘yes’.

“You dressed?”

“No.”

“Get ready, I’m gonna be downstairs.”

I all but forced myself to get out of bed. The first thing I did was open up my suitcase and take the two bottles of antidepressants out, putting them on the dresser by my door as some sort of reminder, taking out the few notebooks I had brought and shoving them inside my backpack, along with the box of pencils I got two days ago. I then sat on the cold floor for what felt like an hour, staring at nothing and not wanting to do anything.

I glanced behind me, at the mirror. There was still the slightest hint of burn on my abdomen, and my pinky toe was still twitching slightly from the shock a few days ago. My hair was a mess, returning to it’s naturally curly, knotted state, and I didn’t think I had enough time to straighten it or comb it. I made a half-assed attempt to pat it down with my hands, but it only somewhat made it worse.

I fell back on the floor, then shoved myself up. I didn’t know what to wear. I mean, I didn’t _care_ , really, but...I didn’t want to…

I picked apart my clothes that I had brought. I tried on the nicest pair of underwear I owned - blue and pink plaid with baby-blue lace on the edges - and it made me feel a bit better, but...I don’t know. I guess I’ll just go normal. Black cargo pants, a souvenir T-shirt from Nashville - because everyone has heard of Nashville and nobody’s heard of Knoxville, even though we’re the third largest city and home to a big gold orb on a stick. I made sure to put sweat bands over my wrists, then found one of the five kazillion hoodies I own, black with a faded logo of the 82nd Airborne Division on the shoulders.

I looked at myself in the mirror one last time, poking at my baggy eyes and trying one last time to pat down my hair. Was there such thing as a black emo kid? I guess it was my white half showing through...well, more so than usual.

I almost walked out the door before I realized I forgot to take an antidepressant. Goddammit. I broke it in half and swallowed it without water.

I smelled maple syrup and pancakes as I climbed down the stairs, which made sense. “Rowan?”

“Oh, hey! There you are!” He poked his head around the corner, dressed in his casual clothes. “First day of school! You ready?”

I shrugged.

He glanced a bit nervously at his watch. I sat down at the table, in front of a plate of still-warm pancakes and milk. Well, the milk wasn’t warm, but, whatever.

“I took the day off to get you there and back...uh, and, also, I ordered some new parts for that laptop we picked up, and they should be in today.”

I nodded.

“We don’t have to leave for a little bit, so take your time.”

I did. I poked at the pancake stack in front of me, taking off little bites, staring ahead at the window and it’s bright blue sky. They were probably the best pancakes I’ve ever had, but, I still couldn’t bring myself to be anything but dreadful about the coming year. Especially with all the…not right things that’ve happened ever since I got here. I just wanted this to be a normal year - well, as normal as normal has been since my freshman year.

Apparently, ‘a little bit’ meant ‘15 minutes’. We left once I was done.

The air was still, but breezy, refreshingly chill and calm. The town itself felt quiet and silent, with only a few sounds of cars and wheels against asphalt popping up. It was a suspiciously pleasant day, especially after the week of rain and overcast skies we had earlier. We got in the car and drove along mostly in silence.

“Are you nervous?”

I wasn’t as much nervous as I was just accepting what was going to happen to me. Even with Lilli, Raul, Max...I liked to think that I had 2 friends, maybe. They didn’t stop me from Kelly or Chris or any of them. They didn’t even know.

“Do you have your schedule?”

I had my folded-up paper in my fist.

We didn’t speak for a bit. I watched the town roll by and people go about their mornings. I noticed there weren’t any school buses around. I guess the town was small enough that it didn’t need them.

My heart wasn’t buzzing as much as it was dead.

“Hey, text me to let me know how it’s going!” He smiled again at me. “I’m sure it’ll all go fine.”

Why did I never tell anyone? If I did I might’ve been able to swing going to an online course or something instead of casting me out into an ocean full of pirannahs.

We turned into the road marked by the LCD sign, driving towards the school and into a small funeral procession of cars - mostly black and shiny and new. I looked outside the window, hoping to see any kind of pink hair, but I was let down by a sea of browns and blondes.

We slowly pulled up to the curb, following the other cars.

“You ready?”

I noticed my knee was bouncing. I pressed my hand onto it before nodding.

He put a hand on my shoulder.

“Uh...yeah, yeah. I’ll see you tonight.”

I tried to smile as I wiped his hand away, opened the car door, and carefully stepped onto the sidewalk.

[I took a breath in.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUpCAx-Jc_Y)

I made my way through the small crowd around the door, pushing my way through the ‘hi becky’ and the ‘oh my god lucy i havent seen you in forever’ and ‘you really fucked that girl from jamaica’. Their clothes were goddamn immaculate, much more expensive-looking than my crappy getup. I think I saw a girl with a gold case for her Lovelace XS.

I ducked through the door, dodged past several bitchy-looking girls trying to take selfies, and found a nice, quiet place in the lobby to catch my breath in.

This was the first time I’ve seen the school’s lobby, even when I registered yesterday. It was littered with small pockets of armchairs and tables, almost more like a cafe than a school. There was a large, kind of weirdly-painted mural on the far wall of the recognizable face of George Washington, as well as a few other people I couldn’t recognize - maybe local heros. I spent a little bit trying to see Max, Lilli or Raul or anyone I knew - even that kid that caught me one time in P.E., but it was too big of a crowd to see much of anything.

I breathed in and out a bit, took out my schedule and quickly read it. Junior American History, Physical Sciences, P.E., Lunch, Junior English Computer Use and Work, Junior Algebra, Study Hall, Home. I read it again and again, and delighted that I didn’t have any kind of special education courses this time. I’m pretty sure I could just head home after Study Hall…

I did have an IEP, though. I’m sure I’d get called aside to have to deal with that...and I was half sure the Study Hall was just a placeholder until they put me into some kind of Social Resources class like in Sherman and teach me how to ‘control’ my ‘anger’.

I traced my finger around the room number for American History. C416...that must be a floor up from my English class that I had last year. I poked my head around the corner, saw nobody impeding my progress, and climbed a large set of stairs off the side of the lobby, heading up.

The main (?) staircase was nicely lit, and I unconsciously made sure that nobody was looking at me or following me. The walls were covered in different portraits, all done in the same weird, kind of amateurish style of the mural in the main room. I bounced up the stairs, past everyone else, dodging girls in sparkly and gaudy makeup and boys in energy drink-branded snapbacks until I got to the top floor.

It was designed like a square with about fifty billion different weird offshoots and hallways. White walls, banners for the Chealsea Pirates, mostly clustered around what I could guess was the athletic offices. The lockers were alternating red, black, and white, which...might’ve not been the best color choice.

Oh, right. Locker.

I pulled up my map again, fully anticipating to have to climb down to the bottom, but it was actually in C4! Nice! I breathed a sigh fo relief and counted the lockers until I got to number 631.  
It was…huge.

It was at the end of a line of red lockers, each one roughly half a foot in width, but mine was…definitely more than a foot across. The metal was crimson, shiny…brand new. It was really, _really_ different.

I inched closer to it, pushed up the lever, and opened it. It was about a foot deep, too. That’s…

I looked around the hallway. It was a bit crowded and noisy, and everyone was too busy to look at me.

I could probably…

I slid off my backpack, carefully placed it by the locker, and peered my head in. A few hair strands got displaced by the edges, but it didn’t bother me. I could…actually stick my whole head in my locker. That was new.

Within a few seconds, my curiosity was already getting the best of me, and I was shuffling inside, moving my body so I was perpendicular to the locker, sliding in…

It was small, metal, and…oddly comfortable. My back was pressed up against the cold wall, and I could feel my knees bump up against the other wall. I could move around only a little bit, but at the same time, I knew that I could get out if I wanted to.

I could actually get used to this, now that I think about it.

“Uh…”

_Shit._

I gulped. Someone actually noticed me doing this? Oh God, oh God…I could already see the rumors starting…I was some sort of gremlin, I had some sort of mental disorder, I was…

Time to face your new ‘friends’ for this year…

I pulled myself out of the locker, looking to where the noise came from, and saw a girl, a bit taller than me. She looked to be asian, and was wearing a dark blouse and skirt, with a red and blue cartoon bear backpack, red hair in a ponytail behind her head. She looked confused. Confused was good. Not sneering or snickering. But, still…this was bad.

“This is…locker 631, right?” she asked, tilting her head. She was holding a piece of paper in her hands, which was probably her schedule.

I slowly nodded. “Uh…yeah, it is. Sorry, I’ll, uh…” I carefully shimmied out of the locker, and checked the locker door just to make sure it was the right one. Why would they assign the same locker to two people?

She sighed, in a bit of a wistful manner. “Looks like we’re locker buddies.”

“Oh! Uh…oh. I guess we are…” I giggled, trying not to show how awkward I felt. I didn’t think about that.

She nodded, smiling weakly. Her eyes had an unmistakable hint of sadness in them, either because of her eyeliner or the bags underneath them. “I’m just glad they gave me another freshman…”

“Oh, uh,” I coughed, pulling up my own bookbag. “I’m seventeen, actually. A junior.”

“Really? I wouldn’t have…oh. Well, you sound like one, I guess…” she moved to the locker, swinging off her backpack and unzipping the head. “Are you from the South?”

I nodded. “Tennessee.”

“That’s pretty cool,” the girl nodded, digging around in the innards of her bear-pack. “I guess you could say I’m from California…not that I’ve ever been there, but…” she sighed. “It’s nothing. What’s your name?”

“Julie Boucher.”

She smiled at me, though it was still weak, and her face still seemed otherwise numb. “I’m Naomi Banks-Vernado. Either name works.”

“Okay. It’s nice to meet you!”

She finally pulled out what she was digging for – a vinyl figure, one small enough that you could wrap your whole hand around it. It was a girl, with blonde pigtails that looked like drills, dressed in a frilly, black dress, with a keychain attached to the base of the head. It was designed in that weird cartoon style, the one where the head is really big but the body is really tiny. “Do you mind if I hang this up?”

“Not at all!” I smiled as warmly as I could. “What is it?”

“Just a dumb anime thing. It used to be my good luck charm, but it hasn’t been working so well recently…” she hooked it onto the coat rack on the inside of the door. “I thought I’d give it a last chance, right?”

I nodded, getting a better look at the little charm. She had bright pink eyes, a little cat smile, and stubby little arms and legs that were ball-jointed at the shoulders. “She’s really cute.”

“Uh, thanks…” Naomi shrugged. I guess I said the wrong thing. Oh well.

“I...have to go...to class, y’know?” I weakly pointed behind me.

“Yeah, no problem.” Naomi waved bye to me and turned away.

That...could’ve gone worse.

I read the room numbers until I got to C416, almost a full lap away from my locker. It was painted kind-of-yellow, with a woman - I could only assume was a teacher -  setting up something on the computer. I found an empty seat by a nice-looking young girl on her phone, sat down, and avoided eye contact with anyone. I could feel eyes looking at me, even though nobody really was. Ever since I stepped through that front door.

The electronic bell went off, the P.A. system started talking about ‘welcome back students of Chelsea high, hopefully you had a great summer,’ stuff like that. I rose for the Pledge of Allegiance, my voice kind of wavering with both tiredness and maybe a bit of nervousness, and sat down. The teacher prepared a few more things on the computer, smiled at us, and waved, before standing up and - quite relaxed and calmly, sat on the desk in the center of the room.

“Good morning, everyone!”

Holy shit. I fell in love.

She was absolutely beautiful, smooth, cream-colored skin free of any moles, marks, or blemishes, almost like an airbrushed model. Her hair was long, colored like red wine, with a small set of pink rose-colored glasses resting gently on her nose. She was wearing a grey-and-white striped blouse that was unbuttoned a bit more than what the school probably allowed, with a matching grey pencil school and - oh my god - black stockings with obvious garters, poking out from just a bit below her skirt’s hem. She crossed her legs - Jesus Christ - and seemingly stared at me dead in the eye. I felt like melting.

“My name is Ms. Cecilia Signe, and I’d like to welcome you all to American History,” Misses! Ms.! She’s not married! Why am I excited about that? ”Well, I’m sure you all know by now, but like most history classes in high school, we don’t cover _every_ bit, but we’ll mostly be focusing on the more... _interesting_ parts of the time. And, I’ll have you know, this is my favorite class I teach, because we start with a war, and end with a war!” she pulled a pen from behind her ear and flipped her hair around. Everyone was staring. Ms. Signe picked up a clipboard from behind her on the desk, and examined it for a second. “Now, let’s just go down the list…Jullianne Boo-sher? I hope I’m saying that right…” she giggled. Oh god, it was great.

Oh.

Oh wait that’s my name

“Uh! H-here. Ma’am.”

“How do you say this part? I’m sorry, I’m not used to these, em, _exotic_ names.”

Fuck fuck fuck fuck

“It’s...boush-eh. It’s French…” I giggled, then stopped myself when I felt my cheek. “Uh, and...I, uh, if you could, don’t mind, could you call me Julie?”

“Absolutely... _Julie.”_

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

She went down the list as I stared at her red lipstick, then put down the clipboard and picked up a stack of papers.

“As I’m sure everyone knows, this fair city of Lydon, Massachusetts started out as a shipbuilding town during the Revolutionary War...how does everyone feel about being a part of history like that? It must be quite thrilling, hm? My hometown is Gothemburg, Sweden, and we’ve had our own fair share of history, but something like America...it’s so bloody, so fascinating? Wouldn’t you agree?”

Most of the class nodded. They were as all spellbound as I was.

“Now, I always like to gauge my classes by throwing them a bit of a curveball, so...I am now handing out the final.”

My beating heart stopped. Everyone groaned.

“Oh, hush, you babies! You won’t remember the answers anyway.”

She started handing out thin stacks of stapled papers, and I tried not to stare as she passed my row. It was _really, really_ hard not too.

“Think of it this way, if you get 100% I might let you pass this class right now.”

I pulled a pen out of my backpack, marked my name and the date, and got to work.

Holy shit. It was easy. For some reason, it was a bunch of questions about wars, and I’m a bit...obsessed with that kind of stuff, so it worked out! One of the questions was about how an en-bloc clip system works, and I could write that out in my sleep. Another was each major war America ever fought in, in order of body count, and how a Civil War surgeon would go about amputating a leg. I mean, it was...weird, but if you had spent entire weeks binging documentaries and weird stuff like that, it was easy. I was done in about twenty minutes, and everyone else was still groaning and muttering to themselves. Ms. Signe was walking around, and when her skirt passed my desk, I couldn’t help but glance up. She reached down, leafed through my test, and gave me a nod with a smirk. I could’ve died happy.

I patiently waited for the remaining twenty-or-so minutes until she clapped her hands. “Times up, loves! Please turn the test in.”

I did so with a strangely confident smile.

“Now, that may seem unfair, but it’s mostly a, well, good sign of what to look out for in my lectures. We could go on and on about Prohibition and the cotton gin and all of America’s little relgious tussles, but, as my professor when I was studying in Britain told me, war and the blood of soldiers is what shapes a nation. Don’t you agree, loves?”

I felt my soul leave my body. I could finally use what I learned in class!

The bell rung and I got up, a light-headed.

“Uhm, miss...Julie, yes?”

I whipped my head around to see Ms. Signe beckoning me with a finger with my test in hand. I floated on over like in an old cartoon, being carried by the butterflies in my stomach.

“Well, you missed a small little thing about Al Capone…” she pointed a red-painted nail to a question. I had said that Al Capone was really interested in the safety of beef, and she had written a heart next to it, and, in cursive, wrote ‘Close! Milk. Moo.’ “But, otherwise, you got a 99%. I usually don’t grade these, but I just wanted to see how many you had actually gotten right. And, as it turns out, you know quite a bit.”

I stammered out a ‘thank you’.

“If you’d like, I can ask a counselor to move you to my AP course. It’s in the last period, so you’d have to see if you can...ah, and you would have to take a tiny exam, but you’d do beautifully, I’m sure.”

uhhhhhhh  
“Oh, don’t worry about choices now. We can worry about it later. In any case, good job! You get a star.”

She poked me on the nose with a golden star sticker, her soft skin against mine…

I died and went to heaven.

 

I walked with a little bounce in my step on my way to Physical Science, on the floor beneath History. I was starting to get a feel for how the school laid itself out, even if it felt kind of arbitary. I found the classroom and headed inside.

The first thing I saw was a bulletin board completely covered in uniform, 5-by-5 inch pictures of a man in various locations around the world. He was in the same position, wearing a light green shirt and corduroy pants, staring at the camera while standing kind of diagonally away. If it weren’t for slight differences between him throughout each picture, I’d have guessed they were each the same thing edited in. The rest of the classroom wasn’t decorated at all except for an American flag.

Then I looked forward and saw the same dude, in the same green and corduroy, lighting a piece of paper on fire behind the teacher desk, holding it with a pair of tongs above the sink.

I stared as he lit it up just glared at it. It quickly burned up and landed in the sink.

I inched towards an empty desk and sat down.

“My...I am Mr. Marat...this is chemistry…”

“Mr. Marat, this is physics!” someone yelled from in front.

Mr. Marat stared at the student before nodding. He looked...strange. Weird. I don’t know how to describe him, other than...not really right. His ears were a bit too wide, his eyes were sunken in, and his skin was thin and pale. He looked like a video game NPC.

“Yes. That’s right.” He picked up a wooden cube and dropped it, staring at the cube on the ground for about a minute, and then pointed at it. “That’s physical science.”

What followed was about fifty minutes of Mr. Marat telling us what physical science was without a presentation, writing things on the board and describing them in a slow, well-versed manner, not looking at us at all. I walked out of the classroom feeling a bit...uh…yeah. At least I have Ms. Signe.

 

I glanced back at my schedule again. P.E.

P.E.

Christ.

I made my long, sad walk down to the gym, as I remembered it from summer school. On the way, I passed by Max at a water fountain, and tapped them on the shoulder. They whipped their head around and waved.

“Hey, uh…”

“How do you like Chelsea?”

I leaned against the wall and scratched my neck. “My American History teacher is...uh...she’s a bit too hot…”

They nodded.

“And my science teacher is…”

“Do you have Mr. Marat?”

“Yeah? How do you know?”

“The only time anyone mentions their science teacher is if they have Mr. Marat.”

“Oh...okay…”

“Don’t worry, it just gets worse from here.”

“Thanks.”

“Where are you going now?”

“Uh...P.E.”

“Oh, I think Lilli has it for her 3rd period.”

I pricked up. “Really?”

“Yeah. We shared schedules yesterday. What do you have for 4th?”

“Uh...English…”

“Oh. I don’t think any of us have an English lunch…”

“Do you guys sepreate lunch periods by class? We did that at my old school.”

“Yeah. It’s weird. We might see each other.”

“Okay!”

Max started to walk away with the crowd of kids, but turned back quickly. “Tell Lilli to text me when you see her.”

“Uh, alright! I’ll see you later, then.”

They waved.

I walked to the P.E. changing room for the girls, where Lilli showed me they were however long ago, walked in, and stopped. I...forgot...I forgot my P.E. clothes. Shit! God...fuck…

I breathed in, exhaled, and walked in anyways.

 

I was late, apparently, as most of the girls had already changed. Which meant I was the odd one out. I couldn’t see Lilli either, just normal girls. A couple of them glanced at me, but turned back to their conversations or their phones. I pulled on the straps of my backpacka  little bit, hunching down and trying to hide as I scanned the rows of gym lockers. I finally found her by the end, in the corner bench, looking paler than ever, purple veins faintly visible on her veins. She was hunched over herself, breathing slowly, eyes closed.

“Hey...Lilli?” I walked towards her.

“Eh?” she lazily gazed my way. “Oh. We’re...in the same class, huh…”

“Yeah...you feeling alright?”

She groaned a bit, sitting upright and against the wall. “I feel...weird…”

I sat down next to her, backpack on my lap. “Hippolyta?”

She stared at me and nodded. “God, I just...don’t have any energy...how’d it feel?”

“Huh?”

“I’ve...y’know, been trying to figure out how this works...I feel different...Puck...how long have you had him?”

“Uh...I, actually, when we fought the thing in your...whatever...I still don’t know what it was…”

“I just wanna sleep for five years or something...god, my head’s still spinning…”

“Maybe you overexerted?”

She glanced at me. “You fainted, right?”

“Yeah. First time…”

She relaxed her posture a bit. “Why ain’t you changing?”

“I...forgot my clothes.”

She shrugged. “First day.”

The whistle blew, and I started nervously walking out to the gym. Lilli tried to get up, but I ended up having to pull her up by her hands.

Aside from a few looks by the two gym teachers on duty - the one from summer school and a blonde dude with a strong jawline, there really wasn’t much to go on. We sat in lines, they talked about expectations (including wearing your uniform every day,), and then they let us loose. There were a few stations around the gym with drums full of balls, some hula-hoops and jump ropes, and a few pull-up bars around the perimeter. Me and Lilli just ended up sitting down next to the wall, next to two goth-looking pale girls that, like me, didn’t care enough to dress up.

“They still haven’t caught the dude who killed that brat…”

“Ugh, really? Man, it feels weird...what if it’s a dude at the school?”

“Maybe. Those video games fuck with your brain.”

“I’m still scared to go to the forest. It was my favorite place to light up.”

“Yeah, ever since they cracked down at it on the beaches.”

“Did you see the pictures of the body?”

“The kid’s body?”

“Yeah. That Mexican girl leaked them, like, the day the kid got killed. His head looked like a watermelon.”

“Ugh. Gross.”

Lilli and I exchanged worried glances, before she lowered her brow.

“Hey, shut up. Why the hell are you idiots looking at that shit anyway?”

One of them - a girl with neon-blue streaks and an ankh necklace - shot a look at Lilli. “It’s not like we made them. They just got leaked.”

“Yeah. Free country to do whatever?” said the other girl, wearing a low-cut black top and spike earrings.

“Why don’t you think of the mom, huh? What’d she think if she knew you were looking at those pictures?”

“Ugh, IDK. If my kid got killed I’d pop a bottle. I don’t want any little brats at my house.”  
“Why’s it even your problem?”

“Maybe she’s just pissed she can’t get any American sites on that shitty Chinese phone.”

Lilli leaned forward, her weak hand trembling as she tried to support her body weight. “The _Hell’s_ that supposed to mean?”

“Like, that Great Firewall thing you people have ‘cuz you don’t wanna see democracy.”

Lilli’s veins popped a bit more. “I’m _Cantonese_ , you _fucking racists_. And if you don’t shut up I’m gonna shove those fucking earrings through your eye sockets.”

I gently pushed Lilli away, trying to act as a silent divider. The one in the lace top cracked up.

“Oh my god, she has to have her girlfriend calm her down.”

“I kinda wanted to see her do that eye socket trick.”

“She’s not my girlfriend!”

The blue one snickered. “Uh-huh, just gals being pals. Y’ain’t sisters.”

“Hey, what’s your name?”

I stared at the lace-top one for a second. I froze and only stuttered a few syllables that didn’t belong in my name before Lilli pulled me up and away, walking the laps along the outside of the gym, fuming. The chestnut-like color was slowly returning to her skin, and she muttered some kind of word over and over again, probably in Chinese or Cantonese, and probably not nice.

We walked in silence for a second. I couldn’t get the look Lace-Top gave me as she asked for my name. I’ve seen it a thousand times before. It made me shut up and stop living.

“Sorry.” she said, after a long period of being quiet.

I didn’t respond.

“Joan and Heather...they just, they know how to get under my...fuck it.”

“It’s fine.”

 

When P.E. ended, I made my way to the main lunch room. I pat my wallet, and noticed that I had forgottten to pack my wallet. Fuck. I’m going hungry.

I walked the outer aisle, trying to find an empty place to sit. I went over the rules I had set out for myself way back in Freshman year. If it was a circular table or a picnic bench, it had to be completely empty. If it was a long table, I had to have at least 3 seats between me and the nearest person, and the other side had to be empty.

I scanned the aisles a couple times. The speaker system was playing something by The Counterweights, that shitty Long Island duo that my dad always described as ‘songs about how much it sucks to be white and in love.’ He used to be a D.J., so I usually went along with his music tastes...it’s a shame the genes that gave him his impeccable tastes passed over me entirely.

There weren’t any empty spaces. I sighed and made my way to my usual second choice - the bathroom stalls.

Me and Kelly used to share the same lunch period, so I wasn’t afraid of something...something happening. She was usually preoccupied with talking with the rest of the Sherman Five or the volleyball team. It didn’t stop me from finding the one furthest away from the lunchroom in my new school, sitting in the one closest to the door (Which, statistically, was the cleanest), and going through my normal routine of propping my backpack against the door, fiddling with the lock to see if I could tamper with it, giving up, and sitting on the toilet, pulling up my legs to make sure nobody saw me.

I checked my phone. I had thirty minutes to myself.

I had nothing on my phone fun. I opened my text messager and saw my last message to my dad. It was a whole month ago, about a movie we both wanted to see before I left. We didn’t end up going.

Without thinking, I opened up his contact. **They’re playing the Counterweights at school.**

I sat quietly until my phone buzzed again. He sent me a picture of him facepalming in his office at home. I responded with a facepalm emoji.

**You having a good time?**

**Yeah**

**Glad to hear it! Except for the music part.**

Shrug emoji.

**Ill survive**

**Good.**

**Mom and I are putting together a package. Anything you want me to send over? Already put in your Gemfriend and the games for it.**

Aw...I did miss the Gemfriend. I should replay Monsterbo sometime…

**THanks**

**No problem.**

I chilled out in the bathroom for the rest of the lunch period. The fact that I was here put me a bit on edge, always looking out for the red sneakers that meant bad things. Nobody entered, though there was the sound of shoes against tile a couple times. I breathed in and out. In and out.

Soon, the bell rang, and I let out a huge sigh of relief. I picked up my bag and headed out, following my memory to Mr. B’s room.

 

Class started like it did in summer school, except for the anthem and...I guess...I dunno. I sat in the same place I did over the summer, but with a tired-looking kid in a green jersey instead of Lilli.

Mr. B. rang the bell that, I guessed, meant class had begun. He did roll really quick - “Julieanne Carter Bousher?” “J-just Julie, please.” “No problemo.”

“Well, most of you guys are here…” he said, leaning back in the desk chair. “Welcome to Junior English, I’m Mr. B, or Mr. Bandy, or Mr. Bandyopadhyay. I’d prefer it if you’d call me by the latter, unless you’re a wuss.”

A couple chuckles came from the class.

“Uh, but, really. I’m sure most of you know about me, but, just a bit of a primer, I was born and raised in Springfield, Illinois, moved here to pursue a law degree, dropped out to teach English, because I don’t like having a good job at all…”

More chuckles.

“Well, actually, it’s because I think reading is a lot more fun when you’re reading about something you want to read about, instead of just law textbooks and boring stuff like that…” he adjusted his seat a little bit. “Y’know, I wasn’t that big of a reader in high school, but when I got out and I could explore a bit more, I became a bit voracious. I think it’s because, y’know, we read crap like _Romeo and Juliet_ and _Where the Red Fern Grows_ \- y’know, the most boring of the most boring...so I thought, well, if I could get people reading what they want to read, we’d have more readers. That sound right?”

We all gave various kinds of approval. I stayed silent.

“So, because this is kind of a laisez-faire school, I usually wait until I meet all of you and get a sense of the classroom before I put together a reading curriculum. We usually try to read one Shakespeare play, but it’s not going to be _Romeo and Juliet_ …”

“But Gio Fernaaandeeez!” came a whining girl’s voice in the other corner.

“Oh, I know, Gio Fernandez, grade A+ dreamboat, blah blah blah. We’re not watching _R/J_ . I was actually thinking of reading _Titus Andronicus..._ anyone know what that is?”

We were all silent. Mr. B. chuckled.

“That’s what I figured. It’s probably Shakes’ coolest play. So, uh...let’s get to know each other a bit more, I suppose. Hey, Julie, let’s start with you. You’re first alphabetically.”

I gulped.

“What’s your name? What’s a fact about you, and...uh...favorite movie?”

I mumbled to myself a bit, panicking from being put on the spot. “I...uh...I, I’m Julie, Bousher. You...know that already, right?” I swallowed air. “I...I’m, I’m from Tennessee...Knoxville...y’know...the, uh, the one with the...mountains…”

Everyone was staring at me silent.

“My...I think my favorite movie is the...the, uh, _Patriot’s_ ...no... _Minutemen_ , that, uh...the WWII movie from...th-that one…”

Mr. B. nodded. “So you like war movies?”

I perked up a bit. “Yeah. I usually try, uh...I try to watch every one about World War II that comes out...there’s one about Korea that I’m looking forward too this...March, I think…”

He nodded again, then moved down the list. The rest of the class gave much better answers than mine. I doodled on the wooden desk with my pencil before erasing it once he started handing out syllabusses.

I flipped through them before coming across a section with five blank lines. Mr. B. said that this was homework - put in your top five favorite books and say why other people should read them. My top five favorite books were all about the Korean or Vietnam wars, two books on firearms, or the strategy guide to _Deadzone 5_ , which I’m pretty sure was longer than _War and Peace_. I shrugged and just wrote down random young adult books that I could name off the top of my head, then headed off to Computers.

 

Computers was on the first floor, which felt like quite a trek. It was in a computer lab - shocker, and I found and sat down in the closest station by the door.

Our teacher was a withered-looking old man in an orange sweater and khakis, with a grey combover and nearly opaque glasses. He was looking at a book, slowly reciting attendence. We went through the “julieanne” “no julie” “okay” thing one more time.

“My name is...Mr. Cumberland…” he said, with a heavy sigh. “I usually teach business, but your usual teacher is on maternaty leave...for this semester…”

Was...he okay?

“I don’t...like computers, really...y’know, they’re always watching us, tracking our typing things and using webcams, and...it’s so scary, y’know?”

Then...why are you teaching computers…

“If I ruled the school, I’d destroy every computer on campus! And the cameras! It’s an invasion of privacy, don’t you agree?”

Most of the students heartily said ‘yeah’.

“Oh, don’t act all high and mighty. You have those little tracking devices in your pockets...hey, you!” he pointed at a girl on the same gold-plated phone I saw earlier. “You’re on one right now! Do you know who’s looking through that camera? It’s some kind of government ultra-pervert, I bet! They can hack into your phone and take a look at you any time of the day!”

The girl sheepishly put her phone back in her purse. I exchanged glasses with the dude to my left - he just shrugged.

“Oh, and now you’re letting it take a look at your wallet? The Czech could be stealing your data!”

“I don’t really care? I’m just a kid.”

“Just wait until you’re older, you all will be first in line for the chips…” Mr. Crazy sighed, winded down, and rested his head on his desk. “Just...do whatever on them for today. We’ll start tomorrow…”

 

I walked out of class dazed and confused. I wish I had the courage to skip classes.

I climbed the stairs to the second level and found my last class of the day - math. The room was plastered in 70’s stuff - movie posters, toys ads, mostly funk-band related stuff. There wasn’t a math-related thing in sight. “Julieanne” “Julie” “Ok” fuck goddammit i hated my own name

My teacher was…

Uh…

He was a dude of implaceable age, kind of old-looking but, well, on the right side of old, with mostly a full head of black-and-grey hair and a small black goatee. He was wearing a weird kind of pastel pink suit - I think a leisure suit? With a jade medallion hanging from his neck, and carried himself around the room with a strong, confident stride.

“My name is Mr. Nowak, and I’d like to be the first to let you cats into my domain of mathematical splendor and educational amazement. Now, unlike a lot of other math classes you’ve had, we’re gonna learn some actual useful stuff…” he posed on top of a girl’s desk, the kind that one pirate on the rum bottles did. “For example, how could one make a perfect Whiskey Bocoa with the right amount of each drink? How many pieces of diamond are on the world’s largest disco ball? If we’re on a party bus from Miami to L.A., how much gas would we need to make the trip? How long would it take?”

I felt a bit...weird…

He took his foot of the desk and started striding around. His voice was weirdly smooth and calming - honestly, in a past life he could’ve been a singer in Vegas...maybe he was.

“Y’see, friends, here on Mr. Nowak’s Algebra Cruise, we take these boring concepts and morph them into life skills. You’ll be the life of the party of geometry, you’re gonna find the man - or woman - of your dreams with the theorems of my man, Pythagoras. Maybe you can find love with FOIL, or make some new friends with your knowledge of functions. And, the best part, all you need to board our funky train to fun and knowledge is your calculator and a little ingenuity. I’m sure that sounds good to everyone, yeah?”

A couple people shrugged. Mr. Nowak waved us away.

“Oh, you guys are bringing me down, we gotta get up! Believe me, you can’t be in a bad mood with math. I’m sure you all have your notebooks, let’s get started with our lectures, huh? C’mon, it’s just the basics. Y’all ever hear of our dear Aunt Sally? It’s just that, easy peasy lemon squeezy.”

I watched in awe of his candace and swaying as he nearly bounced his way through the first lesson. I forgot to take notes. His enthusiasm had bypassed being awkward and embarrassing to almost endearing in a couple of minutes. I...kinda liked him, even if I never liked math before.

It was going to be a...fun year…

 

Study Hall was boring to the point of me falling asleep. So many emotions had mixed in my head that it almost knocked me out. It was just in the lunch room, I wrote down my name, and waited. Rowan came to pick me up after a grueling 50 minutes of waiting for school to end. I felt weirdly...excited about the upcoming year, but, then again, it was only a day, and there were those weird two girls that...they reminded me a bit too much of…

Don’t think about it.

I saw Raul in the lobby, talking to some other kids with cameras. He didn’t see me before I walked out and up to Rowan’s hatchback.

“Hey! There she is!” He smiled as he put the car in drive. “How was it?”

I waited for a few seconds before coming up with a response.

“Interesting…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY YAY WE'RE AT SCHOOL  
> I hope all the teachers are sufficiently weird enough for Persona standards. I might be overdoing it for a few of them, but, hopefully, they're still entertaining.  
> Also, I decided to skip over Sundays for my 8-day schedule, mostly because Sundays are already weird enough as it is for me, and I'm not sure if I'd be able to finish a chapter in time for them. I'm sure I'll be able to upload on some Sundays, especially if the chapter's already done, but if not, wait for the next Monday for the update.


	21. Turn Out The Lights

####  **Friday, August 10th**

 

I didn’t want to get out of bed. I never wanted to get out of bed, but today it felt worse than normal. I didn’t...well, I guess I knew why...I just kind of felt heavy and empty at the same time. My head was hollow, no electrons going around, just an empty skull full of water...or, well, more accurately, whatever the black stuff was that I kept seeing. 

Every once in a while, I tried to make sense of the Theater, the enviroments, the Personas...especially the Personas. I  _ knew _ how they worked, somehow, but every time I tried to envision or estimate the specifics, the how, what, whys...my mind went blank, like my train of thought ran straight into a brick wall...it didn’t make sense. It  _ couldn’t _ make sense. None of this was in the realm of possibility, and yet every time I looked down I saw a circular scar and electrical burn marks around my midsection.

And there was still school. I don’t know how I kept calm yesterday...but, then again, I didn’t know how I kept calm that entire last semester until that one day. Maybe I just kind of accepted that I was at risk every day, and I’m still sure I’m at risk every day. I just don’t know who.

Who.

I rolled over on my side and watched the sunlight in my window move across the room.

“Julie?” 

I didn’t move. Rowan continued to knock on my door until he fiddled with the knob. It came open.

“Oh! You’re awake.”

I shrugged.

“Well, just so you know, I’m heading to work. I go out a bit early, but you, uh, you might wanna be up-n-running by the time I leave, okay?”

I nodded. 

“Call me when you leave, ok? You remember the route?”

“Yeah, I’m good.”

“Uh...yeah, ok. See you tonight.”

He gently closed the door, and I forced myself to stand up a few seconds later. I scratched my eyelid a bit, looked at the T.V. a bit cautiously, like it might turn on and capture me and make me sit down to watch game shows or something. I noticed that it had a small slot under the screen for a VCR tape. Huh.

I got over my sudden fear of being free and alone, quickly put on a long-sleeve dull pink shirt and the same black jeans as yesterday, swallowed some tablets, put my phone and wallet in my pockets, and walked out the door.

 

The bike ride to school was...weirdly refreshing, but I really didn’t think I had the right mental feeling. More than once I saw a car coming on my right and had some kind of awful mental image of just…

It made me freeze a couple of times, and after a certain point I had to...just…

I skidded to a stop as a bright cherry red sports car drove past, my jeans nearly scraping the side. I closed my eyes and...breathed. For a second or two. To my right was a park, to my left was the entrance to a small street lined with shops. I kicked down the bike’s stand with my foot, slumped over the handlebars. God...why is…

I breathed in and out again and again, until my heart calmed down. When I glanced up, trying to gauge how long I took to rest, I smelled the unfamiliar, yet completely noticeable, stench of nicotine. A dull grey cloud wafted in front of my face, another sign that I should’ve stayed in bed all day, and I made a small attempt to wave it away from my face.

“Hm. I apologize.”

I glanced towards the smoker - a portly white guy, standing on the sidewalk. He had on a brown tweed suit jacket, tan pants, a pair of thick glasses with wood sides, along with a thick, well-manicured moustache and his brown hair neatly combed back. He looked about...40. Maybe. He kind of looked like Teddy Roosevelt, maybe a bit more squat and pudgy. The smoke was coming from an old-fashioned pipe, made of dark wood. 

“Tell me, are you liking Lydon so far? Beautiful city.” he asked, flicking ash off of his cigarette.

I narrowed my eyes. How did he…

He looked too...nice to be a predator. I don’t know. What did I think pedophiles looked like? Not this...and he...knew that I was new? But...man...this place was too weird, too many strange things happening to me...I don’t…

I stared him down. “I’ve actually...I’ve lived here all my life.”

He took a brief drag on his pipe, in the way I guessed. “Hm. Your vernacular betrays your attempt at a lie. One thing I’ve always loved about this nation is the vast differences in how we choose to convey ourselves. You’re from...Tennessee, are you not?”

I looked away, then brought up my kickstand with my foot. “I gotta go to school.”

“Yes, from the great state of Tennessee...I’m from Boston, myself, only a stone’s throw away from here, really. Ah, I still visit, from time to time, have to ensure the transportation of all my things…”

I rolled my eyes and leaned on the handlebars. I didn’t care about being late, honestly. I kind of wanted to go home, anyway.

“I’m an antiquarian, you see. But I’m mostly in the purchasing portion of the job, not too interested in the refurbishing or reselling. Changing things too much...bah, it messes with the spirit of it. I’m putting on the years, as you can plainly see, and I’ve always prefer to surround myself with little reminders of my time…”

I felt my patience waning. “What’re you getting at?”

“Ah-ha! Straight to the point.” He smiled and pointed the end of his pipe at me. “That’s why I’ve been so eager to meet you. I was all but ready to speak for a whole fortnite, but you - but you! You don’t put up with any of my chicanery, do you, Julieanne?”

I froze and glanced down at anything - anything - that could say my name. I’m so...why does…

Man, I shouldn’t even be surprised. Anything weird always  _ has _ to know your name, right? I’m a bit surprised that this didn’t happen sooner...and I was starting to get a bit disturbed at how easy I was around this weird bullcrap compared to just going to school.

“Uh...yeah, that’s me. I don’t…”

“Excellent. You’ll soon know that I don’t tolerate much silliness - I’m glad you feel the same way.”

“What?” Why’s he talking about...man…

He took another smoke of his pipe. “Ah, patience. You see, I’ve been monitoring you and your little...ad-hoc exploration club. But, then again, I can hardly blame you for getting curious. An eldritch theater, strange dreams, a mister ‘Igor’, isn’t it?”

I stared through his eyes. Didn’t someone say…like...Boris was going to be in my world now? “Boris?”

“Ah! He has a ‘Boris’ now, of course. So, so fickle.”

I glared at the sun in the blue sky, still early morning, still...maybe on time…ugh. Just another thing to be roped into. “Can I at least know who you are?”

He flicked the stem of his pipe. “Well, I’d like to know a thing or two about you, as well. Your Persona, mostly. They’re fairly mum about themselves, but you can know a lot about someone by the Persona that chooses to assosciate with them.”

I turned my head away. “I-I...I don’t really...know what you’re talking about…”

“Oh! But everything you’ve said so far tells me you know  _ exactly _ what I’m trying to ask you! I’m not easy to shake off, Julieanne.” He pointed his pipe back at me, waving it down like a wagging finger. 

I stayed silent. 

The man adjusted his glasses. “Well? Why not humble this old man’s request?”

I tried to...I don’t know. What...I need to get this guy off of me. “What’s yours?”

“Ah-ha! Again, you’re meeting my expectations. You remind me a fair bit of this particular lass...ah, Taiwanese, maybe, from 1977. Now, her Persona was the Gnostic Sophia, but, even so, sharp as a tack. If you must know, in me stirs Saturn of the Moon - ah, a bit of a oxymoron, I’m aware, but you couldn’t ask for a better fellow. It’s worth forming a bond with yours, no matter how rambunctious or strange - they’ll stick with you throughout your life, however long that may be.”

He...I think he knew what he was talking about...I…

I sighed. “Puck.”

“Ah, the...the fairy, isn’t it? The jester of Oberon, the ‘merry wanderer of the night’...hm…” he adjusted his glasses again. “A certain...earthy persuasion, I’d assume...shifting vines and piercing thorns...well, you’ve certainly been blessed with a real wonder.”

“Thanks.”

He pulled out a pocket watch, which I wasn’t really all that suprised by, since he looked like he just stepped out of a Gilded Age political cartoon in the first place. “Ah, I think I’ve had you for as much time as I’ve given myself...now, I’m about to...well, I’m sure I haven’t made the best first impression, eh, but I’m going to suggest a quite lucrative offer for us both.”

I stared at him, expectantly. My enthusiasm for this old dude was fading. Fast.

“Ah, now, I’m well aware of how...well, eccentric I seem right now, interrogating you about the part of the world that you’ve just discovered, seemingly knowing...well, more than my fair share about you. But!” He pointed his pipe again at me. “You may have no reason to trust me, but I’d like to propose that we work together, get to know more about each other in a purely professional sense.”

He pointed to the left of him, down the road a little bit. “I’ve taken up residence in a picturesque little abode, two stories, the color of spring eggshells, a stone’s throw away from the sea shore. You and your compatriots come in, say...Sunday, perhaps, unless you’re preoccupied with worship or something else...I think I can prove myself trustworthy and helpful in more than a few ways, and you may return the favor by, eh, letting me know the exact nature of the predicament you flung yourself into.”

I sighed a bit, shifting my weight. I was starting to get uncomfortable. “You’ve never even told me your name.”

“Ah! Apologies, apologies, I can get a bit, eh, winded sometimes…” He adjusted the buttons on his shirt, maybe a bit embarrassed. “My name is Dr. Randolph Carter, researcher of Persona, man, and the unknown, and I’m finally proud to make your acquaintance.”

He stuck out his hand, an open invitation, and I glanced down at it and his somewhat wise-looking eyes before nodding silently. I shook his hand and got ready to ride away.

“May I expect to see you this weekend?”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

“My doors shall always be open, as long as you chose to go through them.”

I thanked him and started pedaling.

 

Judging by the amount of student clusters in the hallway, my conversation with Mr. Roosevelt or whatever wasn’t long as I thought. I made my way to my first class, mostly in a kind of frustrated stupor, sat down in Ms. Signe’s class in the same spot - right next to a small poster of all the presidents of history. Teddy Roosevelt was staring me in the eyes.

Ms. Signe spent the day passing out textbooks - surprisingly, they weren’t frayed at the edges like my old one. I actually think I had this book on my Christmas wishlist for a while. We wrote our names in them, like normal - the monotony and the ‘going-through-the-motions’ feeling I was getting kind of helped me calm down, and a quick, thorough flip-through of the book helped me find my footing. The first lesson of the entire year was kind of a crash course on the planet - how it got formed, how we got from Pangea to our current continent sprawl...all that kind of stuff. Ms. Signe’s enthusiasm and, uh...other parts of her helped me stay awake and attentive. My notebook was filled with lines and lines of, uh, notes, trying to add in whatever I remembered. By the time class was finished, my wrist ached more than a bit. I was flapping it around as I walked out of the door, but Ms. Signe’s slightly-accented voice caught me.

“Ah, Julie? I’d love to speak to you again.”

I turned around and went to her. Her hair was tied up in a bun today, and...man. Wow. Jesus.

“Have you given any thought to my offer? I’d  _ love _ to have you in that AP class. You know that, I’m sure of it!”

Her curled, red smile made it hard to form an answer.

“I said before it’s a test, didn’t I? I’m willing to help you study, if you’d like. After school, things like that. But I’m not sure you really need that kind of help.”

O-oh! No, I’d love to stay after school with you! In a lot of ways! “I, uh...I think I’m...I’m good, with that, I-I…” I felt my cheeks get red. “I really don’t need the help…”

Oh my GOD you fucking idiot

“Ah, that’s what I’ve thought! You’re a smart cookie, aren’t you? I saw you writing notes like no tomorrow today...may I see?”

I swung my backpack around and took out my book, handing it to her. She pored over the five pages or so I wrote. “My! I didn’t even think I had this much in the presentation…” she gushed, looking at my little doodle of the Alaskan land bridge. “MMm, yes, and the little drawing here of...oh! My, these are great…”

I nodded, quickly realizing I had doodled a picture of her on the next page. “C-can I have that...I kind of…”

I quickly swiped it from across the desk. She giggled.

“But, really, Julie, these are great! Fantastic! Why don’t you want to come? I need more girls in my AP classes, I  _ hate _ having to gear my lessons to a gaggle of boys who seem to be interested in it for the...well, they probably won’t be on the right side of history in the next few years…” she flipped her wrist dismissively. 

“I...I really don’t know…” I shrugged, thinking to...goddamn everything that’s happened this past week - even this morning. “I just...y’know...I just kind of have a lot on my plate right now…”

“Oh, this class would be cakewalk for you. I have to gear this to a bunch of athletes and people who just don’t care, you’re already doing AP material just in your notes!”

I shrugged. “I just...I’m not sure.”

“Bah!” She flicked me in the nose, which made me blush. “You are like a little old lady, too humble for her own good.  _ Gumman! _ ”

Was that...Swedish? My god.

“Please think about it this next week! I can only squeeze you in before this quarter ends! You’ll think about it? For me?”

For you? Anything. I nodded.

“Excellent! I can’t wait! I will see you Monday with an answer!”

 

My frustration and confusion from the one dude this morning melted into a mild simmer until I got to P.E.. I traced the meandering route I took to find Lilli and found her there again - in the middle of taking off her shirt. I ducked out and stared at the wall.

“Dude. C’mon, it’s me.”

“Y-yeah…”

She approached me, P.E. shirt in hand. “Ugh...man, I feel better, but still like shit. What’s up?”

“I-I’m glad, you...uh…” I glanced quickly at her abs. “You look good.”

“Yeah, I went to bed way earlier last night and ate a lot this morning…” she stretched a bit, then examined her arm, back to it’s healthy color. “God, that took a lot outta me. Glad I feel back to normal, right?”

“Yeah…”

She looked at me curiously. “Uh, you gonna change.”

“I usually change in the, uh, the stalls.”

“Don’t bother. They give you an in-school for it.”

“What?” 

“Yeah? They found two dudes doing fucking, like, heroin in it two years ago or something. They’re off limits ever since.”

“Heroin?”

“I don’t fuckin’ know, I think it was ADD meds, maybe. But, yeah. Way to go, dudes.”

“Uh...ok…”

“What’s wrong? Just change.” As she said that, she slung her uniform over her chest. 

“Y-yeah...okay…”

“Look, if you got performance anxiety or whatever, don’t worry. I’ve given out enough lumps so bitches know not to come back here.”

I pat my breasts to make sure I wore a bra today, gulped when I didn’t feel elastic, and consigned myself to just throwing on my already-really-baggy uniform over my sweatshirt. “H-hey, I need to, uh, can I…” I exhaled. “Did you tell anyone about...the Persona stuff?”

“What? No. Did you?”

“No…”

“I mean, Raul knows, but I think he’d know that nobody would believe that bullshit.” 

I let out an exhale and almost told myself that nothing was wrong before I realized that it made  _ everything _ wrong. “So...uh…”

“What’s up?” She said as she unhooked her belt. I turned around with my shorts.

“I’ll…”

I waited for a few seconds until I heard her gym shorts snap on.

“So...I got...I met...not really met, but…”

“Uh-huh.”

“This...I think there’s another...he...I think he studies Personas. He uses them, too…”

Lilli stared at me in silent shock.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Like...I don’t know! I really don’t know!” I winced, thinking of people that could be listening in. “Look, he...knew me, and he knew about the Theater...he said a lot of weird, like, some stuff that he shouldn’t know, but he knows anyway…”

“I thought Personas were, like...a you-me thing? Like, I don’t know. How are there more things?”

“He said his is...Saturn? Maybe? He said something about the Moon, too…”

Lilli stared at the wall behind me, then let her gaze drift lazily back to me. “What does he want to do? Research us?”

“I...yeah...I think so...but, it didn’t seem like, y’know, the way the government...like, he wouldn’t strap us to a chair or anything...he seemed independant, I think?”

She thought for a moment. I could see the gears turning in her head. “Shit...shit...you think he’s trustworthy? Like...Hippolyta’s cool as shit ‘n all, but I don’t trust anything else fuckin’ at all.”

“I don’t know...but if he knew about everything, I think we can, right? Or at least, like, see what’s up with him.”

Lilli rubbed her nose, pressuring her closed eyes, then started walking away to the gym. “See if you can meet up with Raul tonight, fuck. Just...get him on a call with me, let’s see what he thinks.” 

“Okay.”

 

The rest of the day felt like riding a bike down the side of the Grand Canyon. I was heading towards some kind of unknown doom, and I couldn’t stop myself. I tried to read some stuff out of the history textbook, but I ended up closing my eyes in Study Hall just to calm myself down. They felt heavy anyway...I just wanted some kind of quick rest. It wasn’t long before I felt like I was napping.

[As I slept](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nr9fm99sdHM) I saw giant surges of black blood flowing through pipes the size of continents. Rusted metal gears that grinded against each other, scraping and screaming as the metal was strained. Giant pools of motionless liquid, wheels and conveyor belts endlessly moving.

I saw pillars made of wrought iron, covered in congealed blood, pipes wrapped around them like vines. Giant surges of blood that spilled from pipes and valves like open wounds. I felt hatred. I felt afraid. The transition to this hell was sudden, and it was permanent. I heard the sound of blood flowing through veins, ten thousand hearts pumping to fuel a dead body. There was the sound of a giant beast shaking inside a cage, the screams and crying of men out of their mind,  prayers to an unknown and horrifyingly gigantic black mass in the center of the world, one that shook and twitched like a newborn, or a corpse filled with ants. 

I was here for years before waking up a few minutes later, in a cold sweat, heart beating as fast as our mice’s. 

Everyone was clearing out. The bell rang a few seconds after I woke up. I packed up my book and headed out, trying not to make eye contact with anyone.

Sleeping on the second day. Jesus Christ.

 

The ride home was quick and quiet. No weird people to catch me and profile me. The sun was still high in the sky, and it was the weekeend, but I felt too anxious and scared to enjoy it. I stayed on the backroads, or, at least, the backroads I knew about, and closed my my eyes momentarily every time a car passed me by.

I got home and sat on the couch. My knee was involuntarily bouncing against the coffee table, and I tried to pass the time by watching my fingers twitch. 

I watched the clock. 3 pm was when the good game shows were on. It was 14:30 now.

I turned the TV on anyway. One of the local ELK subsidiaries, I guess. It was playing some show about mobsters - more like a soap opera than anything, honestly, and as I watched I saw that it was pretty clearly taking place in modern-day Boston than, like, Prohibition Chicago or something. It looked pretty cheap, too - it had that telltale mark of cheaply-produced TV where the camera captured everything too quickly and the picture was too clear, instead of being capped at 30 FPS or whatever and being muddied down with greys and digital fuzz. My consciousness faded in and out, but I managed to focus on a particular scene with two dudes smoking cigarettes on a foggy pier, talking about a mansion heist or something to rescue a kidnapped mob member. I eventually just got up to take aspirin, sat back down, and waited for Rowan to come home.

After an hour of mindless watching, I heard the door open. “Hey-hey! How was your first week of school?”

I stared ahead at the clock, shrugged, and turned to him, looking above the couch. “Do you have any old VHS tapes?”

Rowan scoffed. “Do  _ I _ have any old VHS tapes? Julie, c’mon. Why?”

“Uh...I want to try recording something on my TV.”

“Why don’t you just use the VCR?” he picked up the remove from next to my legs. “I usually don’t record a lot, so we have a lot of space.”

“I...just want to try it.”

“No problem.”

He put down his briefcase, took off his jacket, and walked to the computer room with me. The old laptop was sitting on the desk, taken almost completely apart. He kneeled down under one of the desks, pulled out a big plastic box, revealing..more boxes. Rowan combed through the boxes until he saw one labeled ‘STORAGE’, took off the top, and showed me the contents. One of them was something called a ‘VCR Saver’.

“Heh, man, this thing was a trip…” He picked up the brightly-colored box, what looked to be an old computer thing from the 90’s. “People tried everything back then, this was, uh...if you could believe it, they tried to use VCRs as storage space for a little bit! I got this when I was...15, maybe. Man! What a waste.”

“Did it work well?”

“Ha! No, not at all. I’ll show you sometime. Hey, you know you can just come in and chill out here, right? Some of the games are tough to get running, but just ask me and I’ll show you.”

“Thanks.” That actually sounded like a fun time.

He picked up a box of VCRs, pulled out one with a blank label, and handed it to me. “You think you just need one?”

“Yeah. Should be good.”

“No problem.”

 

“Hey. Raul.”

Raul looked back from his brief organization of his locker to see Max standing behind him. He was surprised - he had just got out of the first organizational meeting for Chelsea’s high news paper, and by the time those let out after school, he and the rest of the team were the only ones left in the school.

“Oh, hey, man! What’s up?”

Max shuffled against the weight their backpack suddenly seemed to pick up. [“I need to talk to you.”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAsT6xSg9g0)

“About?”

Max got closer. “Look.You’re acting weird. What’s been with you lately?”

“Nothing, man. Normal summer.”

Max shook their head. “No, no. I come back, you and Lilli are closer than ever, there’s this little girl running around that you guys talk about like you’ve known her forever. It’s like a joke that I’m not in on. Something like that. But…”

Raul looked away and scratched the back of his head. A tell that Max had picked on. “It’s nothing, man.”

“It’s something.”

“I...look, Max, it’s just been normal here.”

“You’re fucking quick to assure me it’s  _ normal _ .”

“It’s…”

“Normal. As opposed to?”

Raul looked Max in their eyes, as much as it pained him to do so. The two had known eachother since childhood. They were each other’s secret keepers, the ones they’d call in the middle of the night sobbing. First kisses that they now only somewhat regretted, summertimes spent on the beach, sad songs and laughing in silence. Throughout it all, the bonds of friendship remained strong.

Raul could feel them straining.

“You’re...you know, it’s like…”

“It’s like  _ what. _ ”

“I can’t tell you. It’s too…”

“You can’t tell me?! Fuck, Raul, I’ve told you shit that I can’t tell anyone! I trust you!”

Raul’s words tumbled out of his mouth like a leaky faucet before he shut up. Max eye’s were starting to grow wet, tears coming out in silence.

“You’re not…”

“No!” Raul finished his thought. “Listen, I’m not going to do that. It’s not that…it’s just…”

“You buy a fucking bulletproof camera, you’re trying to get stuff going behind my back…”

“I’m not!”

“Then what the fuck else are you trying to organize with those two! You remember what Lilli was like when I came out?”

“And now she’s the first person that’d be on your side.”

“I don’t trust her. And I don’t trust whatever that southern girl is! God…”

“I’m just...I can’t…”

“You can’t…”

Raul looked as Max’s legs got unsteady. They felt their head, turning away from Raul for a split-second.

“You okay?” Raul placed his hand on Max’s shoulders before they shook it off.

“Why can’t you tell me?”

Raul stared at Max. “Because I’d scare you.”

Max’s mouth closed and wavered, and they placed a hand on Raul’s shoulder - an attempt to get the two of them to lock eyes, and a last-ditch effort to keep themselves on two feet.

“I’m not scared of you, Raul. I’m scared of what you’re trying to keep from me.”

Raul nodded. 

Max’s head bobbed up and down as they wiped a tear from their eyes. Some small drops landed on the white tile.

“Are you…”

Max looked at him with half-closed eyes - trying to open them felt like a herculean task - and let his head fall down.

“Max, are you al-”

His question was answered when Max’s body gave way, and they almost fell to the floor. Raul caught their body in a split-second, holding them with both arms, arms over his shoulder, a lifeless head without breath against his breath. 

“Max! Hey! Wake…”

There was a pulse, but not much next.

“Shit...shit...shit...oh God, oh...no, no…”

He pulled out his phone. This wasn’t a time to use CPR - as far as he knew, there wasn’t any shock, and he felt Max’s chest rise and fall. Did they just fall from exhaustion?

911.

“Hello? I need a bus - an ambulance, Chelsea High School, Lydon...41 Rhodes Boulevard, 3rd floor. Se-send a Bravo response...someone just fell unconscious...at school…”

Raul’s tears slicked the floor.

“I’m...I’m fine...oh, God…”

 

####  **Saturday, August 11th**

 

I woke up to my phone ringing, which was a very unusual experience to me.

“HUHghhguh…”

“Julie?” Raul.

“Yeah...yeah?”

“Look...I need to...you and Lilli…”

He sounded both exhausted and sad. Out of breath and somehow breathy.

“Max...we were at school, and he...they just fell…”

“What?”

“They’re in the hospital. They’re just...asleep. They can’t get up.”

“Oh...oh my God…”

“Can you come over? I don’t want to leave…”

“Uh...I don’t…” 

I felt my bike hit the Grand Canyon rocks.

“Yeah...I...I can try. I’m not sure.”

“Thanks...thanks…I’ll see you...just, text me or something…”

“Okay.”

I hung up, looked down at my sweat pants and tank top, and realized I really only had to put on a shirt to look presentable. I did so.

“Rowan?”

Rowan looked up from his paper. 

Uh…how am I gonna swing this...I don’t even know where the hospital is! What would he think if I just said to take me to the hospital?

“I’m gonna go to the bathroom for a second.”

He chuckled.

I ducked behind the wall to the kitchen, searched ‘Lydon MA Hospital’ on my phone, and looked up restaurants near the ‘Jonathan Lydon Regional Health Center’. Lus Milano. Sure.

I tapped my feet to 100, then got back up.

“Uh, hey, my friends want to meet me at Lus Milano...can I go?”

“Lus Milano?” He put down his paper. “That’s expensive. You sure you’ll be able to go?”

“Y-yeah, we got...reservations. My friend…”

“Uh-huh.” he said, in a tone that he believed me, but unsure to what extent. “Can I meet them?”

“Uh…”

“Is that ‘uh’ a ‘no’?”

“Yeah.”

“Yes, it’s a no?”

“No - I mean, yes. It’s a no.”

He chuckled again. “Just send me updates. I’ll go get ready.”

 

About an hour later I was ducking across a crosswalk, and walked into the brick-and-glass building labeled the J.L.R.H.C.. There was a news crew in front, which I felt was odd. Then I walked in and saw two more in the lobby. Was this really that big of a deal?

The lobby was white and grey, basically a stereotypical hospital lobby? Kind of small. In the center-back wall was a fountain with a statue of a saint, one that was twice my size. In the center of it was a plaque - ‘Thank You to the Cohen family for their generous donations to the Commonwealth and Well-Being of Humanity’.

Huh.

I walked to the front desk girl, a pretty young nurse that was obviously at the end of her shift. Raul had just texted me  **3rd fLoor** and not much else.

“Uh…”

“Yes, sweety?”

My fake smile deflated. Oh boy.

“Are you here with your parents? Do you need to find the restroom?”

“I’m seventeen.”

Her smile deflated. “Oh. OH. I am - I am terribly sorry.”

I sighed. “How can I get to the third floor.”

“Uh...well, that floor’s closed off, somewhat.” She glanced over my shoulder to see the reporters. One was from a news source that I knew covered the Senate, the other had WJFS BOSTON labeling.

“I think you know why.”

“Oh, I’m here to see...my uncle...Kimber...Kimby.”

The Nurse, who’s nametag just read ‘Kimberly’, grimaced at me. 

“L-look…”

“Uh huh?”

“I’m friends with...uh...the guy…”

Her finger reached to a part of the desk obscured by an overhang.

“Hey! Kimberly!”

I glanced towards the voice and saw Raul running down a hallway. He looked tired, and his voice sounded like he had spent years inside of a cave. “Kimberly, she’s with me.”

“Oh! Okay. I’m sorry.” She returned her hand from the weird side of the desk. “Raul, you’re not doing anything? Like that weird girl that you brought up…”

“Shoshana’s a friend of mine. I just want her friends to see her.”

“Alright, I guess. Just don’t muck up with stuff,” she waved me by, but grabbed Raul’s sleeve before he left. “Gabe still owes me that Olympus Burger, by the way. Can you remind him? Since I’m being so nice.”

“No problem...have fun with the rest of your shift.”

“Yep. Two more hours.”

Raul lead me to the elevators, pressed three, and collapsed back against the wall. “I should’ve told you, uh…”

“News crews?”

“That, and the Cohen family pretty much shut down the entire ward Max’s in. They donated so much to the center, I guess they’re kinda obligated.”

He stared at the mirrored ceiling.

“Why the reporters?”

Raul sighed. “Parents. Again. Max’s dad’s a...he’s a state congressman. Cameron Cohen, Independant, leaning right...he likes to say he likes privacy, but I guess someone tipped them off about his lovely daughter’s…”

He looked horrified for a second. “Max told you, right?”

“Yeah.”

He gave a huge sigh of relief. “Yeah. Alright...this would...just be a horrible time to out someone…”

We walked out of the elevator, to the right, through a set of double doors. Raul talked to the nurses at their station for a second, then brought me up to a closed room, with a fairly muscular hispanic man, in cat-and-dog nurse scrubs, hair tied back into a ponytail, typing on a tablet. Lilli was sitting on the floor, kind of half-asleep. The air was cold and clinical, like most hospitals, but especially moreso.

“Gabe. Olympus Burger.”

The man sighed. “I’m not driving to fricken’ Boston just to get her a burger. I keep telling her that!”

“Oh...uh, Gabe, this is Julie…”

Gabe looked up from the tablet, then up and over it at me. “Oh! Hey. Always good to meet another bad influence on my brother.”

Lilli slapped Gabe on the leg. 

“You another friend of Max’s?”

“Yeah.”

Gabe nodded to himself. “Yeah, sadly, the Cohens requested the upmost privacy, as you can tell by the fifteen thousand cameras downstairs. I can’t sneak you guys in.”

I glanced through the window, trying to see if there was a crack or something through the blinds that I could glance through.

“Hey, but, Raul, proud of you.” Gabe bonked him on the head with his tablet playfully. “Did all the stuff on the checklist.”

“Checklist?”

Gabe glanced at me, then Raul, who nodded. Gabe leaned in a bit.

“Yeah, Raul, Max, and I put together a list of stuff to do just in case anything happens to...them. Y’know. Look, their parents? They don’t know. They’re still in the closet, so it’s like they live a double life. Outside of that house, he’s who he wants to be. Inside...they’re another person. That’s why all the school records have them as  _ Shoshana _ Cohen, why they have an entire set of clothes at our house…”

“I have a copy too…” Lilli leaned out a little bit. “Never had to use it, but…”

“Yeah, if something happened to Max while they’re dressed like an emo kid? They and Raul and the hospital would have to answer some  _ very _ awkward questions...you’re getting my drift?”

I nodded. I put the pieces together in my head, and the resulting image wasn’t pretty.

“Yeah. And this little guy did it all to the letter. It went off without a hitch.”

I tried to glance through again.

“I don’t think their parents are gonna leave for a bit. Besides, Max’s…”

Lilli poked her head out again. “You never told us what happened.”

“And I  _ can’t. _ ” Gabe sighed. “Confidentiality. And it’s not like Raul doesn’t know. Nor can he tell you guys. Like, say, in the rest and prayer room we have just around the corner. That’s pretty much dead because we’re not letting anyone up here.”

Raul nodded, but didn’t move. His hand was on the glass. Gabe tapped him on the head again. “Yo. Bro. Move. I’ll keep watch and let you know if they have to duck out.”

Raul rubbed his face quickly, nodded, gave quick thanks, and lead us two to the rest room - a small room lined with chairs, two coffee tables littered with magazines, and a T.V. playing some cable news show. Lilli yawned, spotted two vending machines, looked at the label, make, manufacturer, whatever, punched in some codes, and got a couple of things for free. Raul just sat in the center, bent over, hands clasped.

“So...at school...God…”

“Dude, slow.” Lilli said, mouth full of powdered donut.

“Max...Max asked me about what’s been going on. All the...sutff we’ve been trying to hide from them. And then they...they just got knocked out...like, all of a sudden. And...you know, they ran him to the emergency room, ran them through some tests, MRIs...all that stuff…”

“He’s in a coma?” I asked. It sounded really horrifying. This is what I’ve been dreading, no doubt.

“No! It’s weird. Their brain’s like, boucning all around. Like, they’re  _ alive _ , and usually it’s just like...when you’re in a coma, there’s not a lot of activity. That’s why they’re vegetables, right? There’s nothing going on…” Raul wiped his forehead a little bit. “Max is...like...high. The brain activity is spiking...there’s this thing where some coma patients are actually conscious throughout the entire time! Like, they see everything, they just can’t  _ respond _ . But it’s like Max’s asleep.”

He looked at the two of us. We were fascinated. He continued.

“They’re asleep...but they’re dreaming...or...something...but I think he’s dying...there’s no other explanation…”

Raul sighed. “I can’t do anything about it…”

Dreaming.

My gears turned and turned and turned.

“I never told y’all…”

The two of them looked at me.

“Uh...that one night...day...at that one place...the bar? I think…”

I put the story in my head.

“I had to go because I was so tired, right? I went home and I just...fell asleep, right there...and I had a nightmare...about my old school…” 

I flexed my fingers, and I saw Puck’s talons. And then I felt the rust and blood again.

“I had a nightmare, but it felt...weird...and real...like, I felt everything, and it all...wanted to kill me...there was...you know…”

Raul’s head was nodding slowly. Lilli stopped eating, reached down her shirt, and started rubbing around the area where the glass scarred her.

“Whenever we kill something, there’s that...black bood. When me and Lilli got our Personas, there was that black blood. When I had that nightmare...I drowned in it. It spoke to me. I-It wanted to  _ kill me _ …”

Raul’s whole body shook in anger, before he let out an small exhale and calmed down. He looked at me. “We haven’t been exploring just our minds.”

“When I was a kid, y’know, I…” Lilli leaned back against the wall. “Fuck. When I was a kid, I got lost in this big damn stadum...my mom and dad brought me to that Chinese dance show? Like, to make me feel like I was at home…I just got lost. I didn’t know what the fuck was going on. It scared the shit outta me.”

Raul nodded, then slowly muttered something ending in “-phobia.”

We sat in silence for a good minute, thinking to ourselves, before Raul stood up, strangely courageous-looking. 

“Tonight, we’re going to the Theater. And we’re saving Max.”

“How’re we gonna do that?” Lilli shook her head sadly. “We don’t have him. Don’t you gotta have the person to get into it?”

“We’re finding a way. If this works how I think it works...we have to try.”

I nodded. “Tonight, then.”

Lilli's phone buzzed for a split second. "Ah, shit. Hold up." She answered it quickly and gave a greeting in Cantonese, walking out of the room. Raul watched her leave, before turning to me.

"You're ready, right? You and Puck?"

"I think so. If I can..."

I felt the black on my skin again.

"If I can keep another person from having to deal with what I went through...then yeah."

Colors danced across my eyes, and the world went different and strange, purple and black. I felt Raul's sheer strength radiating off of him like heat from a fire, love for his friend, and how ready he was to...just be a good person, no matter what.

I felt the words again.   


Ｉ ａｍ Ｔｈｏｕ， ａｎｄ Ｔｈｏｕ ａｒｔ Ｉ

Ｔｈｏｕ ｈａｓ ｃｒｅａｔｅｄ ａ ｎｅｗ ｂｏｎｄ， ａ ｓｉｇｎ ｏｆ ｐｅａｃｅｆｕｌ ｑｕｉｅｔ ｉｎ ｔｈｉｓ ｒｅｓｔｌｅｓｓ ｗｏｒｌｄ．．．

Ｔｈｒｏｕｇｈ ｔｈｅ ｐｏｗｅｒ ｏｆ ｔｈｅ  
Ａｄｊｕｓｔｍｅｎｔ Ａｒｃａｎａ， ｔｈｏｕ ａｒｔ ｏｎｅ ｓｔｅｐ ｃｌｏｓｅｒ ｔｏ ｅｎｄｉｎｇ ｔｈｅ ｎｉｇｈｔｍａｒｅ．

Lilli came back in within a few minutes. "I have to head out soon, but I'm good to go tonight. Noon."

"Alright then. Noon." Raul looked away from the both of us. "Bring your Personas. And weapons."

Lilli looked offended for a split second. "Why're you looking at me about that?"

"Because I've been in your room."

"I...actually, shit, I probably could..." she pouted.

I stood up with the two of them. "I'm...I'm ready. I'm going to help."

Raul's face lit up with a kind of determination I've never seen from him. "For Max..."  


"Let's go."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh shiiiit  
> Just a heads up that the next chapters might be a bit more...rushed than usual, because I'm reaching the end of stuff I have mostly written or entirely pre-written, and I've been commissioned (!) for more than a few things that I have to focus more of my time on. Thankfully, I have most of the stuff planned out in my head, so it won't be, say, just meandering around plot stuff.  
> Also, just like Lilli's, Raul's arcana is kind of weird because of the use of the Thoth Tarot. In this case, 'Adjustment' is the equivalent of 'Justice'.


	22. E1M1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just set up a Discord server for this fic! Check the notes at the very bottom for the link.

I stayed in the hospital for what felt like two hours with Raul after Lilli left. The two of us didn’t talk at all. We didn’t bother turning on the lights - just the two of us in a dark rest room lit only by the sky and a muted television. I think the only speaking I did was when I had to put on a fake smile, call Rowan, and tell him I was having such a good time and we’d probably be late.

“They’re going to show me around the town, just, uh...some cool places.”

“Alright, I suppose. Be home soon, ok?”

Raul was mostly just fuming, or, maybe he was just anxious. It was hard to tell. He had taken off his glasses and was rubbing his eyes a bit, bent over in his chair.

“You alright?”

I jumped up slightly from the couch. He was looking at me with tired, slightly fearful eyes, the color of his irises seemingly drained.

“Yeah, I, I think so…”

He rubbed his forehead, then his face, swiping off his tears. 

“I think...y’know...I think it’ll be fine, right?”

“Yeah,” he nodded to himself. “You’re the expert on this, after all…”

“I’m no expert on...anything, really…”

“That’s what Lilli said about you. Born with that Personal thing, whatever it’s called…”

“I wasn’t born with it...I don’t know the first thing about them…”

He stayed silent. 

“But...y’know, I think this’ll work, right?”

Raul looked at me, then his phone, before putting on his glasses.

“I, like, it’s one of...one of those things...y’know, it has to work, because there’s...nothing’ll happen otherwise…”

That’s...such a horrible thing to say right now, wow.

The sun fell into the ground outside. Raul’s phone buzzed.

“She’s at the Theater.” he said, in a hushed, tired voice. “Let’s go.”

The two of us walked down to the elevator and out the front doors in complete silence. The reporters had left, and the lobby felt surprisingly dead. It was early afternoon, but the world felt still and lazy. Raul drove us to the coffee shop in his car, and I was starting to get used to his silence. It was easy for me. As we neared the Theater, though, his expression grew more...determined. He had a death grip on the wheel, and he stared straight ahead, rather than exchanging furtive and almost worried looks with me as he had been doing.

We pulled up right next to the Theater - I guess he didn’t care about tickets right now. He didn’t need to be. Lilli walked up to us from the curb, carrying a small box.

“Shit, shit...wait...dammit!” Raul banged the wheel, ignoring Lilli. “I forgot that first-aid bag...shit. God... _ dammit! _ ”

I tried to think of something to say, but before I could even open my mouth he had gotten out of the car. I nervously fidgeted with my seatbelt before remembering that it could be unhooked easily.

“Hey.  _ Hey _ ,” Lilli motioned for the two of us to come over to the Theater’s doors. “Something’s up.”

“What’s in the box?” I asked.

“Nothin’ that I can show out here.”

I glanced away, but looked to where Lilli was pointing. The Theater’s doors weren’t completely black like always - rather, I was able to look straight through them like a regular set of glass doors.

“What the…” Raul tugged at the doors, apparently with more force than it needed, since they swung open immediately. “That’s...that’s not how it’s been.”

“Means something’s up.”

Raul nodded, and the three of us headed in. 

The lobby was empty, as usual - I guess I had anticipated Sam to be there. Lilli herded the two of us to the side, towards one of the tables surrounced by plush purple couches. She slammed the cardboard box down on the table and opened it before us.

Inside was what looked like a small length of pipe, a large bowie knife in it’s sheath, a brush hook for gardening, an obviously fake pellet pistol made to resemble the Fernetti MF1, two things of firecrackers, a lighter, and...energy drinks?

Raul pulled up one of the cans. “Really?”

“Yeah! So, I got to thinkin’...you know how much that Persona shit drains from you?” 

Raul shook his head, causing Lilli to sigh and turn to me. “You know, right?”

“Uh...yeah, I guess...it kind of just feels like being hit with a truck sometimes.”

“So, I brought these for a pick-me-up. Smart, huh?”

Raul stared blankly at her. “Yeah. That’s going to work.” He quickly turned his attention to the brush hook. It had a much shorter handle than normal, seemingly sawed off and sanded down. “And what the hell is this? Some kind of damn ninja weapon?” He gave it a few practice swings, up and over his head and from side to side, using it like a one-handed war axe or sword rather than a sledgehammer or something.

“Man, maybe. I found it in my garage. Wicked, right?”

Raul nodded in approval.

“It’s a brush axe!” I announced, suddenly turning into overexplaining-nerdy-Julie. “You use it to tear up bushes and tree roots and stuff.”

“Nice.”

I nodded to myself, kind of happy that nobody seemed to care. “Can I have the gun?”

Lilli shrugged. I picked it up, pressed the magazine release button, and sighed with disappointment. “It’s not loaded with anything.”

“Yeah. It’s a pellet gun. You don’t load it with bullets.”

“No! Like, not even pellets! It’s empty.” I shoved the magazine back in, before pressing the button again and reenacting the reload animation from Honor/Valor - pulling back the slide with my hand, checking the chamber, fiddling around with a firing switch on the side that really shouldn’t even be on this model, which bugged me. I then realized that I was walking into a hell dimension with only a BB pistol and quickly grabbed the pipe. It had the same heft and length as the baton - pretty convenient. Lilli grabbed the bowie knife and hooked the sheath onto her belt, tucking the fire crackers and lighter into her cargo pants. We were about as equipped as we could be.

Raul had visibly calmed down a bit, resting the brush axe against his shoulder, standing confidently. Lilli had a hand on the handle of the knife. I was fidgeting with the pipe, running my hand across the surface and twisting the T-junction that I guess served as a bludgeon.

We rode the elevator in relative silence. I think all three of us were a strange mixture of scared, determined, and pissed off, in varying amounts. 

The doors opened, revealing Samuel right in front of us, the black eyes of his mask apparently shimmering.

“Hello!”

I yelped.

“Oh, dear. Are you okay?”

I nodded and brushed past him, clutching the pipe for dear life.

“Sam, has anything weird happened recently? Just....out of curiosity…”

Sam twiddled his fingers a bit as he followed Raul. “Nothing out of the ordinary, as far as I’m aware! M-may I ask - what are those sharp looking implements for?”

Raul sighed, loosening his hold on the axe and letting it fall to the ground. “There are...Sam, no offense, but weird things are happening. We think...someone is trapped in one of these dimensions that we’ve been exploring.”

“Someone? Other than you three?”

Raul nodded.

“There’s...my! I thought all this time you were the only other ones! There’s more of you! How many?”

Lilli groaned. “Man, fuck, like, seven trillion. A lot.”   
“A trillion! Wow, that sounds...that is a word, right? Wow!”

Raul shot me some confused looks. “Do you...could you play the Orchestra? For us?”

“For which one of you?”

Lilli facepalmed. “Look, this theater’s acting up. Once it lights up, you’re able to play music, right? Is there one you...haven’t played?”

Samuel’s muscles stopped their seemingly ceaseless twitching for a second or two, before he nodded and walked calmly to the Orchestra. I felt the machine’s eyes fall on me, and I got split-second long visions of me destroying it with a fire axe, swinging at the millions of valves and pipes, splattering my face with blood. I brought myself back to reality, just as Raul and Lilli began staring at my blank face in confusion. I sheepishy waved them off.

Samuel punched a few buttons, connected a large, vein-like wire to a seperate conduit, and threw the switch. The Orchestra boiled to life, groaning and screaming like a dying cow, pipes bursting with steam as it seemingly directed the power to the vents and outlets that created the horrible noises.

The first one that sounded throughout the Theater was a baby sobbing loudly, the crying seemingly splitting off into two seperate, slightly offset screams that blended into coins dropping endlessly. Church bells rang, muted whispers that shifted to laughter, screams, howls of pain. Soft sighs and loud screaming mixed together until they were indistinguishable, horrible sounds of leather belts against flesh, evolving into open-palm hits and gagging that turned into the cheers and adoration of everyone, clapping and yelling in approval. Locking doors, shut windows, zipping and buttons bursting, meaningless chattering of names and numbers that faded into a single, dull hum of nothing.

Lilli took her hands off her ears and sighed in relief. “Ugh...fuck, I hate that.”

Raul stared in horror at the Orchestra, processing the ‘music’ that just played. Samuel took his hands off of the levers and valves, apparently exhausted, his posture resembling an unattended marionette.

There was the sound of pulleys in the vast catwalks above, and a bright red door slowly floated across the ceiling, descending into the center of the stage with a flourish of red rose petals. It was a magnificent double door, engraved in rose gold and silver in the form of a heart - with an actual, anatomically-correct heart inside of it.

“That...can’t be Max’s…” Lilli shrugged. “Right?”

Raul grabbed the door’s handle and pulled it open. 

Inside was what seemed like a painting from the end of the world. The door lead to a quaint dirt path through a forest, ground unnaturally pink and the leaves of the trees strangely blood red. The sky was another strange shade of pink, almost dark and stormy. The dark pink colored clouds seemed to be moving three times as fast across the horizon, and were raining rose petals.

“Well…” I shrugged, holding the pipe close to my chest. “I guess this is…”

Raul guaged the distance of the drop, and jumped down from the door onto the dirt path, stumbling a bit on the landing. Me and Lilli followed, and Sam simply stepped down.

“There’s...now way this is what’s inside Max’s head, right?” Lilli mused. She looked through either side of the forest surrounding us, even though it quickly became complete black shadow.

Raul shrugged as he continued on the path. “I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“It’s supposed to be our fears, right?” I asked, kind of unsure on the idea myself. “Like...mine was a school, Lilli’s was...an empty arena...Raul had a prison…”

“Maybe they’re memories?” Lilli scratchd the back of her head. “Like...you had shit times at school, right?”

I nodded, and tried to make myself not say anything else.

“I’ve never been to that kind of...winter prison…” Raul sighed. “I know how it fits, though.”

I watched some kind of not-squirrel run past, and tried not to think about it. The air felt oppressive, kind of heavy, like during a thunderstorm or hard rain, but without the actual rain part. Maybe the rose petals.

“This place is quite beautiful, no?” Samuel mused. “It’s much better than the last two! Ooo, I can’t wait to see what this land has in store.”

We walked the path, hands uneasily on our weapons. I had the pellet gun in my off-hand - I dunno, I don’t think monsters knew that the orange tape meant it wasn’t real. I thought of Puck as distantly as I could, almost like my mental focus was a finger hovering over the ‘Persona’ button on a computer.

“Is Max afraid of forests?”

Raul shook his head. “They’re not really...I don’t know. I have some…”

In the distance was a wrought iron gate, made out of the same rose-gold that the first door had, with the same double-heart insignia. Lilli squinted forward before picking up the pace. “This forest shit gives me the creeps.”

The gate was the end, apparently. On the other side was a grassy hill, with the same kind of pink foilage covering the ground. I could see the sky much more clearly without the canopy of trees - the sky was certainly stormy, but a sun somehow hung underneath the clouds, larger and brighter than it ever could possibly be. It hung just over the horizon of trees, shining light directly onto a large, opulent, magnificent mansion in the center of the hill. It was made out of bricks that were a brilliant shade of red, lined with rose-gold metal columns and gilded decorations. It looked somewhat like a red White House, covered in frescos and hieroglyphs detailing a story I couldn’t parse.

“That’s it then.” Raul nodded to himself.

Samuel gasped. “How magnificent! Such a beautiful structure...much larger than the Theater, though…”

I shook my head. “Don’t get jealous.”

Lilli studied the gate a bit, testing the mechanism used to open them - it seemingly wouldn’t budge. She put her blade back in the holster, tested the strength of the different metal bars, and started climbing.

“Guess there’s no other way, huh…” I sighed, poking the gun and the pipe through the walls and trying to remember how to climb those rock walls from old P.E. classes. Raul tossed the brush hook over the wall, climbing with us. It took Samuel a couple of times, but he seemingly was just able to pull himself up by sheer force of will alone, rather than the dexterity we all needed.

Raul landed on his feet with a bit of a struggle. “Augh...man, if the rest of this place requires cardio…”

Lilli stared at me. “We...could’ve just used our Personas...couldn’t we…”

Shit.

“Well, how about you two keep that in mind…” Raul picked up the axe again, stretching with it. “Man, I hope I get lucky.”

“Lucky?”

Raul shrugged. “I dunno. Let’s just hope.”

I nodded, sitll unsure.

As Samuel clambered down the gate. It seemingly began to...brick itself up. Almost as if ghosts were completing the wall it was attached to, or some kind of stop motion cartoon. Bright red bricks came out of nowhere, built the wall, and that was that. We were stuck. I made a quiet ‘aww’ noise, hoping not to show that I was still unsure about everything.

Raul sighed, climbing up the hill to the mansion. 

The front door was somewhat more modest than the rest of the house would have you believe. The surface of each door was taken up by reliefs of a man and a woman, somewhat touching hands on the fingertips, each dressed in slinky togas that revealed more than they probably should.

“So...we just knock?” I asked.

Lilli smirked. “Rich people don’t answer knocks,” she banged on the door with the butt of the knife. “Hey! There’s a lawyer outside that wants to see you! Something about a kiddy diddling ring!”

Raul elbowed her, just as the eyes of the reliefs seemingly...came to life. They blinked, and they turned so that their pupils were facing us. I was taken aback at first, clutching the pipe, but resorted to half-hearted waving. 

The woman’s relief seemingly ignored me, turning over and over in an imitation of exhaustion. I kind of felt offended. 

Lilli tried to touch the man’s eye, but it kept turning away and blinking away from her finger. “Wuss.”

“Uh...hi?” Raul did a quick, short wave. “We’re, uh, here to see...Max?”

The two reliefs stared blankly at him.

“Shoshana?”

Suddenly, the reliefs broke into wide, crazed smiles. The eyes bulged out before rolling back into themselves. Voices came out from the inside of the mansion...or, rather, the entire mansion itself began speaking.

“Oh? Is that who I think it is?”

“Raul Douglas! To think you’d be the one who’d come to our little party.”

“Shosana won’t stop talking about you! Her little heart’s going pitter patter, just waiting to see you.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Raul got more frustrated as the name kept being said. “Can we get in or not?”

“We’d love to have you in! Abosolutely!”

“You aren’t our first choice for her partner, but we’d only want what’d make her happy!”

Lilli stared ahead. “First choice? There’s more?”

“Well, given the current situation, we might’ve put out a bit of a call to all of our friends, or friends friends...simply put, we’ve given our little Shoshana an entire ocean of fish to sift through until she finds her perfect match.”

Raul stared at the frescos in horror.

“Dear, why don’t we give him a chance? He  _ is _ our daughter’s first love, isn’t he?”

“Well, I’m not sure...would their parents approve of such a marriage?”

“Oh, and there is the matter of…”

“Yes...hm…”

They whispered to one another quietly. I looked at Raul. He was fuming.

“Well! Here’s our little deal. Raul, if you’re able to have Shoshana choose you as her preferred partner, we’ll send the rest of her choices home, and she’ll be all yours! If not...well, we’ll let them have their way with you. Whatever punishment seems fit for having a pauper arrive at the party of princes. Sound fair?”

“We ain’t marrying her! We’re saving her!” Lilli shouted, banging the door with her knife.

Raul was about to say something, but it was apparently too mean for the voices. He swallowed air, then nodded. “Yes. It’s fair.”

“Excellent, excellent, excellent! Come on in!”

The relief’s wild, tooth-filled grins widened a bit more as the doors opened, revealing the dark, seemingly empty interior. Raul buried his face in his hand, tightened the grip on his hook, and entered slowly, leading the four of us. 

The moment we went in, the doors slammed close with a thud like an artillery blast. 

**ʜᴀᴠᴇ ꜰᴜɴ!**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! So! One quick thing, and I think both of them are kind of me overestimating how many people read this.  
> First, I'm not sure how many of my readers crossover with the brilliant Lady Thief by Koisurufortunecookie (http://archiveofourown.org/users/koisurufortunecookie), but for those of you who do read it and are wondering about the lack of updates as of late, blame depression. The author's been going through some really tough times as of late and has been trying to work on the fic on and off between downer periods. I hope everyone's understanding, and I'm absolutely sure that Koisuru would love to come back to an outpouring of love. (Seriously, if you don't already read The Lady Thief - do it! It's great.)  
> UPDATE: [Here](https://discord.gg/wXWrqYb) is the link to the server! The link expires in one day, but I'll post another link if anyone asks, and I'l post it again next week.


	23. Eyes Lit Like a Fucking Demon

The inside of the [mansion](https://youtu.be/t8RFcWCWkcI) was...dark, in a weird way. It was like there was a sphere of dim light around the four of us, but everything beyond us was covered in a thick, pure black fog. Or, maybe more accurately, The fog was just too thick for us to see past it.

Despite the black mist of dubious cleanliness, the air felt relatively nice. I still felt this strange, unseen force, like my mind and my shoulders was bringing the rest of me down, but I wasn’t even really sure if it was there - it all felt weird and...really, for lack of a better word,  _ broken _ . The arena, the prison - it all felt like, normal, I guess. This one felt disjointed, in a weird, kind of like I was remembering a hazy memory, even if I was living it.

Lilli took out her lighter and tried to use it as some kind of light, but it didn’t end up revealing that much. “Shit...flashlights next time.”

“Let’s hope there  _ isn’t _ a next time.” I mumbled. I tried to mentally...observe Puck, I guess, trying to see if there was anything I could do for light. Bioluminescent mushrooms, maybe? 

“So, first order of business is light…” Raul scratched the back of his head. “Damn. Don’t think they have any light switches…why don’t you summon that, uh, flame person?”

“I don’t wanna waste all of it in one go, y’know?” Lilli waved her lighter around, Samuel watching the flame with a weird kind of fascination. “Hey, guess what they have?”

Raul groaned and turned around. Lilli had her hand on a large switch, encased in a weird kind of relief resembling a man with mouth as wide as it could possibly be. Lilli threw it with a single motion, but instead of any sort of overhead lights or bulbs, the room slowly became filled with the warm, gentle lights of candles that had been scattered around the room. After a few seconds, the entire room was completely lit up.

The room was...like a film set. A really, really overblown film set. It was a wide foyer, painted in deep reds and vibrant pinks, with a single, grand staircase in the middle that split off towards separate balconies on either side. The ceiling was draped in brilliant red tapestries, lined with gold thread and symbols of interlocking Venus and Mars symbols. There was a long, red carpet stretching from the front door to the staircase, lined by different marble statues. The floor was covered in those rose petals from outside, along soft, plushy-looking furniture, some of it covered in small candles. The majority of the light, though, came from a massive, multi-tiered chandelier covered in red and white candles.

“Huh…” Raul stepped forward a bit, carefully holding his brush hook.

“Ain’t this…”

“Yeah…” he answered Lilli. “This is Max’s house, kind of.”

“Kind of?”

Raul turned to me. “Y’know, minus the statues and flags and, uh, blossoms.”

“And the…”

Lilli walked forward, staring at a painting on top of the staircase. It was easily the size of an SUV, framed with brilliant gold and studded with diamonds, rubies, sapphires…

It was a framed portrait of a regal-looking family - daughter, father, mother. The father was somewhat older looking, in a fancy-looking suit, salt-and-pepper hair with, while the mother was younger - wheat-colored hair in a braid behind her, wearing a sleeveless black dress in pearls. The daughter was sitting on a small, velvet chair in between the two - neatly combed red hair, a light pink dress, and a black choker with a golden cross in the middle. 

“No way,” Lilli poked the painting, tracing the brushstrokes. “That’s how he sees himself?”

“No, hell no. If I know them well…” Raul glared at the parents in the portrait. “I don’t know them as much as they know themself, but if the past worlds are like this one, then this is what Max fears, right?”

Lilli nodded.

I stared up at the faces, tracing their features and the small details on their jewelry and accessories. “I’m still not sure I get Max’s whole...situation.”

Raul stepped back and away from the portrait. He looked frustrated and kind of confused. “Do you mind if I skip an explanation? It’s not right to explain all the sordid details on behalf of them.”

Lilli stayed silent as she lead Samuel away. “So this is just his house, right?”

“Shall we explore?” Samuel asked, with a fairly curious tone. 

“I...guess…” Raul rested his brush hook on his shoulder again. “Max’s room should be on the west wing, second floor. Let’s try there.”

We walked to the left, towards the balcony that was seemingly railed using wrought iron. 

“Uh, there’s two doors…” I noticed. “Which one goes to their room?”

Raul shrugged, then opened up the first door. “The hallways are shaped like a U, so it really shouldn’t mat…”

Beyond the door frame was an exceedingly long hallway that, seemingly, ended in complete darkness.

“Aw, come on.”

Lilli groaned. “There’s, like, twelve dozen doors!”

“And we don’t have a light source…” I sighed.

“Ah-ha!” Samuel said, somewhat triumphantly. “I believe I can help in this situation! I’ve been training for just this moment!”

Raul’s voice went flat. “Really.”

“We are looking for a fellow...whatever you are, correct? Allow me to locate them for you!”

“Wait, for real?” Lilli said, shocked. “That’d make this thing a whole helluva lot easier.”

“Follow me, if you would!” Samuel bowed and marched forward. “You see, I’ve become much more acclimated to your presence. Darkness isn’t a problem for one who can navigate by aura alone!”

I...guess that made sense.

We walked through the hall for one or two minutes. Lilli brought out her lighter again, trying to shine light on the doors that lined the walls. None of them had labels, and they all kind of looked the same, anyway. Raul was looking around cautiously, his fingers drumming the handle of the brush hook. Samuel was still marching forward, leading us, sometimes slowing down to rub his temples or hunch over in apparent concentration. Sometimes, the way he was twitching, it looked like he was in pain, but I couldn’t know for sure. His mask hid everything.

“Oh...oh my!” He suddenly exclaimed. “I think I’ve detected something!”

“Really?”

“Is it Max?”

“Ah, I’m not quite sure, sadly,” he sighed, waving his hand dismissively. “But it should be up ahead!”

“Alright…” Raul said, relaxing his shoulders. “Lead the way.”

Samuel only stopped in his tracks, though. “We seem to be close to it, so we just have to…”

The dark fog ahead shifted, somewhat - like the world just forgot they were supposed to be there. A strage, somewhat bouncy sound rang throughout the halls, like footsteps from clown shoes. My hands tightened around my pipe. I hated clowns. Who didn’t?

We watched the slowly dissipating clouds of black, ready to fight. Samuel simply stood ahead of us, like some kind of general leading his platoon. 

The clown shoes grew louder and louder until a...thing came out of the darkness.

It was some kind of literal cartoon character, but it was staring us dead in the eyes. It had a pill-shaped body, with a black bottom half and a white top, patterned like a tuxedo, complete with buttons and a seemingly printed-on tie. It’s arms and legs were black spindles, ending in white gloves and oversized leather shoes, and it was holding a perfectly-sized cane for it’s misshapen body. The only kind of features it had otherwise was a small, kind of askew top hat, a monocle, and a black handlebar moustache.

“Ah! Hullo, good sirs and ladies!” It said in a not-quite British accent. “Are you, perchance, the other suitors invited to this fine party?”

Raul’s face deflated. “Oh, my  _ God _ .”

“It’s quite good to see another face! I must say, I’m quite excited for this little competition the family is hosting. Isn’t it a pleasant artifact of a bygone age? Competing for a young maiden’s love!”

“We’re not competing for nothing.” Lilli refuted. “We’re just here for Max!”

“Max? Are you sure you’re not mistaken?”

“We’re not.” I said, kind of sure I wasn’t mistaken.

“Well, regardless, even if we are competing, there’s no rules against a bit of gentlemanly banter, is there?” The weird pill-millionaire (pillionaire?) adjusted his top hat and leaned quite calmly on his cane. “Tell me, what do you think of this mansion? Such a modest sort of decadence!”

“It is quite interesting! I hope we can return once our mission is complete.” Sam nodded to himself. I guess he’d be the kind of person interested in this.

“Why, of course! The husband always gets the property of the bride in these sort of arrangements. I was just thinking of that myself.”

“So you’re exploring?” Raul asked.

“Well, in truth, I’m looking for the bride-to-be’s chambers. Nothing like saying hello and having a little, eh, discussion beforehand, right?”

Raul stood up much more rigidly when he said that. “Right.”

I felt Lilli tap me on the shoulder. “We’re killing him, right?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“We happened to be sharing the same goal, sir!” Sam shared. “Perhaps we can benefit from each other’s company?”

“Quite the good idea, chap! Oh, and traveling with a group sounds much more safer than alone. Er, not to sound afraid, but the other suitors here may be a bit...rougher.”

Raul nodded. “So you’ve met them?”

“Of course! Let’s see, there’s the lecherous one - I believe he’s still in the basement, the gourmet must still be in the kitchen, last I saw the baron was in the library...hm, though I haven’t met the captain yet, sadly...in all honesty, you’re the first friendly faces I’ve seen since I’ve arrieved! Now, about that partnership, I - “

His train of thought was suddenly interrupted by Raul’s brush hook striking the middle of his head, spraying black blood over the red carpet. The pillionaire made a few babbling noises before Raul struck him again, creating an even bigger gash, and it fell to the floor.

“Holy - “

“What?” Raul said, shaking the ceramic bits off the hook. “We were gonna kill him.”

“No! That was awesome!”

Samuel seemed taken aback, “Why - that was sudden! Why would you do such a thing?”

Raul shrugged. “I mean, isn’t this some kind of ‘there can be only one’ thing? We should probably thin out the competition.”

“I-I suppose…” Sam stuttered. “Wouldn’t it be better to give it a warning?”

“Element of suprise, Sam.” Raul brought the hook up over his head.

I saw the arm of the pillionaire twitch.

“Element of -”

“I’m inclined to agree with your friend, chap.”

A gloved hand grabbed the blade of Raul’s hook.

“That wasn’t very sporting of you.”

The pillionaire held the hook and thrusted it to the right of him - with Raul still holding the handle. He slammed against the wall, spine seemingly being struck by a doorknob, as Raul recoiled and yelled in pain before slumping down against the wall.

“Now!” The pill said, struggling to get up as blood streamed down it’s face. “I may be a bit of a curmudgeon, but I still know how to hold my own in a scrap!”

I stood back, hands on my pipe, trying to gain distance. He unsheathed a sword from his cane - which, of course, ended up being twice as long as the cane itself, shining in the dark hallway. Samuel ducked to Raul’s side against the wall.

“Now, which of you would like to duel first? Let’s handle this nice and gentlemanly, try and make up for your friend’s dishonorable actions, hm.”

I clutched my skull as a throbbing, hearbeat-like pulse came from my frontal lobes, and saw my arms and body become wreathed in brilliant, white fire. I saw my vision split like before - Puck’s eyes, and my own.

“Oh, dear! Quite a rash of unchivalrous actions so far. No matter! I shall show you how a true man fights!”

He swung his blade close enough to Puck’s chest that I felt my own stomach get scraped - stinging like a papercut before disappearing amongst the sudden rush of adrenaline. I tried to take a second to examine my surroundings - the walls were made of some kind of painted concrete, but the floor underneath the carpet was hardwood planks. Either I could use the wood or I’d have to use Puck’s own vines. Would concrete count as earth? Why can’t I spend some time to figure this stuff out on my own instead of this trial-by-fire crap?

“C’mon, up-and-at’em! Let’s go!”

“Flank ‘em!” Lilli commanded, running forward and to the side towards the pill. I momentarily forgot what flanking meant, but I followed her command, with Puck standing in the middle between us, dodging and baiting the pills attack’s - though sometimes striking dangerously close to his body.

Lilli delivered a kick to the pillionaire’s face once she closed the distance, sending him off his feet. I tried to follow up with a strike against torso, only succeeding in keeping him further off balance. 

“Cover me!” She said, closing her eyes in an attempt at focusing. I think she was trying to summon Hippolyta. Wouldn’t that be overkill?

Okay. Wait. Cover her.

The pillionaire slowly got up on his feet, balancing himself while seemingly ignoring the multiple flowing wounds. He leveled his sword and poked me back, apparently ignoring the multiple obvious slashes and slices he could’ve done to put me out of comission forever. He did succeed in keeping me at bay, though. Puck floated back to my side.

“Vine whip?” I asked. He shrugged. I guess I had to find actual vegetation. Dammit! I thought about throwing my pipe and then going forward with a beat down, but that was too risky. He tried to run me through, and I narrowly dodged getting my intestines punctured - though still ended up with a somewhat stinging slice across the side of my stomach, and my sudden movement threw me off balance enough to send me to the ground. I felt something press against my pelvis, making the landing even more awkward.

Wait. Something against…

oh god dammit I had the gun the entire time

Puck closed the distance while the pillionaire was distracted with me, delivering a solid strike to his monocle and shattering it, and landed another punch to keep it occupied. I struggled a bit to pull out the gun, fighting against my lapsing concentration and my own pain, but I soon had my sights set on the pill.

“A...ranged weapon? Quite unsporting…” he said, ignoring the obvious orange safety tip. I don’t even know why I pulled it out, but my plan was to keep him distracted - it was working. I heard Lilli yell, the noise sounding like it came from miles away when I had really landed at her feet.

I brought my free hand into a claw, and Puck followed suit with his talons. The wood underneath the pillionaire’s feet began to splinter and grow into several sharp, jagged hands that grasped his spindly legs. He struggled for a bit, still trying to swing his blade at Puck and I while we were - quite thankfully - out of his reach.

“I say! This is the worst fight I’ve had to participate in! Why, if I would’ve known that this entire mansion was filled with devious sorts like yourself, perhaps I wouldn’t have come in the first place? What’s next, a fiend that comes from behind with a blade in the dark?”

Hippolyta’s helmet shone from the dark fog behind him, and brilliant light came from the fire enveloping her claws. With a single motion, she brought down a sword of fire onto the pill, cleaving him in half, causing black blood to spurt out of his wounds in a giant, sudden surge. The two halves fell to the ground motionless, and Hippolyta snuffed out the scorch marks on the wood with her heel.

Raul groaned as he stood up, rubbing his back. “That...hurt.”

Hippolyta looked at the carnage by her feet, glanced up at Lilli, and the two exchanged thumbs-ups. Puck flexed his arms a bit before letting the wooden fingers dissolve back into the floor.

“Jesus. I hope it’s dead.” Raul poked the bisected body with his hook, making it tip over a bit and spill blood from the open sides.

“I don’t think anything could survive that…” I said. “I-I mean, y’know, being cut in half…”

“It’s quite...gruesome…” Samuel mumbled. He wiped something off his shoe. “Not that there’s anything wrong with gruesome! But it felt a bit unfair…”

“Pf! Oh, don’t tell me you believe in that ‘honor’ crap!” Lilli chuckled, before getting flicked in the head by Hippolyta again. “Hey!”

Raul rubbed the spot on his back where was slammed against the wall, then glanced at the gun in my hand. “Why didn’t you fire?”

I shrugged. “It’s a lil’ BB gun. It wouldn’t do much. Look.” I aimed at into the darkness and pulled the trigger.

It went off.

The gunshot’s loud crack rang throughout the tiny hall, the bullet sailing past Hippolyta’s thigh and striking a wall in the far back. The muzzle flash lit up the dark hall for a millisecond, and gunsmoke drifted up in the still air.

The four of us looked in horror at the pistol. Raul raised an unsteady finger at it, and Lilli backed away slowly. 

“You brought a  _ real gun?! _ ”

“It’s not real! It’s a toy!”

“It just shot a  _ bullet!” _

I looked over the gun in confusion, flicking the orange safety tip. It felt plasticky and kind of cheap - I think it was even a springer rather than using recoil like the one I owned.

Puck plugged his ears, and I pulled the trigger again. The bullet flew through the air, with another loud bang. 

“JESUS!”

It landed on the far wall, with only about a .5 grouping between the two marks. Nice grouping!

“Can you stop?” Raul took his hands off his ears. 

“Oh! Sorry, I got a bit…” I shrugged, before flicking on the gun’s safety and putting back in my pocket.

“Damn, so BB guns work in this place?” Lilli’s face grew a mischievous grin. 

Raul threw up his hands. “I don’t know! Maybe CDs work as shurikens! Maybe you can throw aerosol cans as grenades! Let’s not worry about that right now! We need to find Max!”

Lilli looked taken aback, but ended up just rolling her eyes and going forward.

“Uh…” he sighed. “Sorry, it’s just kind of…”

“No, I gotcha,” Lilli tapped Hippolyta, who nodded and dissolved back into ash. Puck took her lead and fell into the air, dissipating into flower petals that fell to the ground. “There’s a door up there.”

“Ah, I’m a bit sad to say that I don’t detect another presence,” Samuel rubbed his temples. “Not in this general area, at the very least.”

I scratched my scalp, looking to the door at the end of the hall. “Well, should we just go around and look for the other suitors?”

“Yeah,” Raul agreed. “There’s, uh...the library, basement, and kitchen, I think.”

“Plus one on the loose.”

I opened the door at the end of the hallway once we had all settled down - well, the other three people, at least. I was still kind of shaking from the gun. It lead into another slightly-darkened room, apparently a bedroom, lit by candles and a small, ornate lantern hanging from the ceiling. The main part of it was a red velvet canopy bed, obscured on all sides by curtains with golden stitching, with little else of note aside from a makeup station and mirror. There was a large window that seemingly lead out to a balcony - though all I could see past it was an extremely dark void.

“Max?” Raul called out into the room. He opened up the curtains to the bed, revealing nothing but unused pillows and blankets. “Dammit.”

“How about we go after those suitors?” I suggested. “I don’t think whoever’s runnin’ this...y’know, they wouldn’t keep the prize out in the open…”

Raul sighed heavily. “Yeah. Prize.”

We headed back out, through the hall, and into the main foyer. My eyes were immediately drawn to the painting that took up the majority of the wall - there was a bright white gem in one of the corners of the frame that had lit up, shining brilliantly among the dark fog. The painting didn’t seem to change.

Raul shrugged. “Three more, I guess.”

I mentally counted. But...not counting us, I guess, there were four other suitors...I guess I shouldn’t worry too much about it. I doubted this place followed logic, anyway.

“Kitchen, basement, library…” Raul mumbled, repeating to himself. “Kitchen...basement…”

“What was the one in the basement?” Lilli scratched the back of her head, knife in hand. 

“The...lecherous one, I believe?” Samuel rubbed his mask’s temples. “I...do feel multiple presences...perhaps, if I can focus…”

“Yeah, I kind of want to get that one out of the way…” Lilli leaned against the wrought iron balcony rails. “Look, killin’ that little Moneybags Man was fun ‘n all, but monster perverts just sound unpleasant.”

I mumbled something in agreement. 

“And, y’know, we have a gun. I don’t think monsters can do a lotta fuckin’ around when they’re filled with lead.”

I saw Raul and Lilli’s eyes fall on me.

“So...monster pervert first?”

Lillli and I nodded.

Raul turned to Sam, though he took a bit to think about whatever he was going to say. “Hey, can you tune your...location thing to the, like...the most…”

“The horniest signals?” Lilli suggested.

Raul elbowed her. “The ones with the most lust.”

“I-I can try…” He nodded. The twitching of his muscles became softer and softer as he concentrated, and some small...tears of black stuff slowly oozed out from his eyes. After a couple of seconds, he nodded to himself and resumed his normal twitching. “I sense something odd underneath us. Is there any way we can get there?”

“Staircase, maybe...should be one…” Raul scratched his chin before heading down the stairs and walking to the side. “Ha! Guys, there’s an elevator underneath.”

The three of us climbed down and went to his side. Sure enough, there was what looked like an old-timey dumbwaiter for servants or something embedded into the side of the stairs. 

Lilli pushed it down with her foot, making it slowly bounce up and down. “Looks...safe”

“Well, find a different way down.”

“I was just saying! Jeez.”

I let them bicker for a bit as I stepped onto the dumbwaiter. It was pretty simple - just a lever on the side and a closing door. 

“C’mon, hey. Let’s go.”

The two of them looked at me sheepishly before climbing in. Samuel simply walked into the cramped elevator, flicking oil from his eye - I think he was just happy to be here.

“Everyone good?” I asked, then threw the lever before they could resist. I wanted to get this over with - mostly for Max’s sake, but I sure as hell wasn’t enjoying this, either.

The dumbwaiter’s door closed as it started it’s slow, steady descent into the basement. We were all silent, trying to guess if the creaks from the pulleys meant certain doom or just slight discomfort from the machinery. Though, after my nightmares and the Orchestra...I’m not sure if I trusted machinery anymore.

It took a few minutes before the elevator shook to a stop. The door slowly opened to a completely dark room. Because of course it did.

“Aw, come on!” Lilli groaned, taking out the lighter again. “Can’t this place be lit up for once?”

Raul shrugged. “Lotta people are afraid of the dark. I guess Max isn’t an exception.”

I bent down after I got off the dumb waiter, rubbing the ground. Concrete again. Damn.

“Ah...that’s odd…” Samuel touched his mask again. “I...can’t…”

“Is that you, my sweet?” 

We all shut up.

“Oh, you’ve come for me at last! I knew you’d be here soon...all the others are so tasteless, they only care for your money...your power...only I would truly love you, treat you like the princess you are…”

Two spotlights turned on in the distant air above...though after a second, they began to bounce and sway across the sky wildly, like googly eyes from an unseen creature.

“Hello? Hello? Please, you must be near...I’ve been so lonely...the rich man is so rude, and the others don’t care much for my company...I long for a companion…”

I clutched my hand tight enough that my fingernails dug into my skin. Black blood streamed down from my fingers, quickly evaporated by white fire. 

“It is you, right? I’m...so lonely...I just want your touch on my skin...please, show yourself!”

The spotlights began sweeping the ground in front of me, causing me to break concentration just to backstep. I didn’t want this...thing to know I wasn’t his precious.

“Footsteps? Are you dancing a lonely waltz, perhaps? I’d love to join…”

The pair of spotlights sunk to the ground as it continued it’s search, with the sound of concrete being broken filling the silent air. I couldn’t see Raul, Lilli, or Sam - I guess they were hiding. I was alone.

Alone against this...thing.

I placed my hand on the grip of the pistol, but the sight of white fire broke my concentration.

“Your princess ain’t here, dipshit!”

I saw Hippolyta in the distance, creating a bow and arrow made of brilliant red fire and aiming it right in between the creature’s spotlight eyes. She let the bolt fly through the air, and it pierced...something in the middle of the, creature’s eyes, illuminating a patch of pale white skin. It yelled in pain, apparently being thrown off balance as it’s spotlight eyes flailed about.

“No! Please, I don’t mean to…”

The monster fell to the ground with a thud, and a long line of candles lit up around the room, illuminating it fully.

It seemed to be some kind of...doll. A weird one. It was like the little fashion dolls that girls liked (well, most of them), dressed in a tuxedo, but it’s limbs were horrifically elongated and stretched, to the point of becoming as thin as it’s fingers towards the joints. It’s hands ended in long, wicked claws, and it’s feet were almost nonexistent, being sharpened to a point. The worst part was it’s head, though - it looked like it was swelled like a balloon, with a pencil-thin moustache, a large, permanent grin, and bulging eyes that bounced and jiggled with every slight movement it made. It clawed at the fire bolt embedded in it’s plastic skin, frantically yelling at someone to take it out.

“Please! I mean no harm! I just want to see my princess!”

I pulled out the pistol and leveled it at the doll’s eye, and it tried to scuttle away. 

“I don’t wish to fight, please...I just...I’m so...lonely…”

“That may be the truth, sir,” Samuel announced. “But you must be destroyed! Or, at least, that’s what I’ve been told.”

Raul gently pushed him aside. “We won’t harm you any further.”

“Really? Oh, thank you, kind fellow…” the doll put out a finger towards Raul, and he shook it, though somewhat apprehensively. “We may be in this competition, but there’s no reason in fighting like this.”

“Yeah…” Raul bit his lip for a second. “Look, I’ll level with you - we want to win, but I don’t want to hurt anyone I don’t have to. So, how about…”

“We won’t kill you if you leave.” Lilli announced. Hippolyta put a foot on the monster’s chest, strung another firey arrow, and aimed it at the beast’s head.

“L-leave? No...no, I’ve been here as long as they can remember…” the doll twiddled their fingers apprehensively. “I can’t leave until I’m one with the princess...I simply can’t...please, you must understand, I don’t wish to have anyone come to harm…”

I tightened my grip on my pistol as it spoke, making sure my aim was as close as I could get to the doll’s temple without startling it.

“That sort of agreement hasn’t worked out so well…” Samuel quietly mused.

“W-what do you mean? Please, tell me! Is the blood of others on your hands?” The doll began panicking, swiping at the ground.

I pulled the trigger, and Hippolyta let go of her bow. My bullets hit the beast square in one of it’s eyes, and the bolt of fire split it’s head down the middle, creating long, jagged fractures in it’s plastic skin.

It twitched for a second, bleeding black. Then it clawed at the ground with enough force to splinter the concrete.

“Retreat!” Sam yelled.

The doll began to groan, standing on it’s pointed feet, before it let out a dark, deep laugh with a voice that obviously wasn’t his.

“Well, now...I suppose the bets are off…”

It’s eyes began slowly filling with black sludge as it’s head cracked more and more. The beast’s mouth splintered open, turning it’s smile into a jagged maw dripping with black spit. Hippolyta vaulted off his body and strung another firey arrow, but the monster grabbed her with a hand that seemed to simply blink over to where she was. It brought her to his maw, opening it up…

I fired multiple shots into the black beyond his teeth, and his head jolted back in pain. He gave up doing whatever he was to do with Hippolyta, instead slamming her to the earth with enough force that Lilli collapsed to the ground, like she was being run over with a phantom pick-up truck.

I saw the white fire return to my hand, and I shot out my hand in Lilli’s direction. Puck emerged from thin air, creating a flower shield above her body as he flew across the concrete ground. Hippolyta slowly got up, creating her mace from a pillar of fire, and Puck flew by her side. I ran to Raul and Sam, aiming the pistol at the doll - as if my tiny BB gun could deter him away.

“Pests! All of you! Why must you stand in the way of love?”

Raul tightened his grip on his brush hook. 

“You try to fool me with your...parlor tricks…” The doll’s claws became enveloped in his own blood, elongating his talons, and it fell to a primal stance, looking more like a spider or an insect than the crude parody of a man it already resembled. It was already several times larger than our Personas...and this…

I felt the soft bubbling of fear emerge from underneath the adrenaline. Puck’s smile slowly closed as it slowly crawled the two Personas.

I let Lilli’s flower shield dissapear, and she struggled to get up, but she seemed more determined than ever. 

“The-the ground!” Samuel pointed to where the doll’s claw marks cracked the concrete. 

“The ground - what’s that…” I asked, scared and confused, but I pieced it together as quick as I could. I brought my hand into a claw, then envisioned some kind of...wooden spikes…

Sure enough, small spears of rock and earth shot out of the ground, covered in moss and roots. Hippoltya seemed to catch wind of this, dragging Puck by the arm and leaping to where the pillars emerged, swiping at them with a flaming claw. The loose plant matter caught fire immediately. The monster recoiled away from the fire, seeming actually afraid for a second before spitting black fluid at them. The fire was put out immediately, almost anticlimactically, and the doll swiped at the rock spears, breaking them with almost no effort.

Through Puck’s eyes, I saw a giant, black claw that raised itself miles and miles above him and Hippolyta.

I felt a part of my soul shatter. Puck tried to raise a flower shield above the two of them, which Hippolyta lit on fire as further deterrent.

It didn’t matter.

The claw descended with no effort, no resistance. I heard and felt every bone in my body break at once, my organs liquifying twice, three times over. All my nerves, my thoughts, my entire body...it all turned to absolute, numbing pain. I fell to the ground in a broken slump, watching the pistol in my hand skid across the concrete and my bruised, purple hand reaching towards it - fingers twitching and bleeding, my mouth filling with a metallic liquid. The last thing I saw before I nearly blacked out was the drifting of white and green petals among ash. 

“Shit!” Raul exclaimed, pulling Lilli to my side - her mouth bleeding, coughing up water and black, eyes glazed over. He stood in front of us, axe held defiantly, if shaking.

“Now, will you stop trying to fight back?”

“No.”

“No? Do you need a lesson like, ah, those two?”

Samuel reached down and lifted me up effortlessly. Lilli coughed up a tooth before slowly rising on unsteady feet. I slowly felt my vision return to me.

[“I’m...I won’t let…”](https://aether-realm.bandcamp.com/track/tarot-instrumental)

Raul’s brush axe fell to the ground, it’s handle coated in black blood. His hand twisted into a painful claw.

The doll roared. “No matter what...I won’t let you reach my princess!”

ʟᴏᴏᴋ ᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ! ꜰɪɴᴀʟʟʏ ꜱᴛᴀɴᴅɪɴɢ ꜰᴏʀ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴏᴡɴ ɪᴅᴇᴀʟꜱ!

Raul doubled over, grasping at his head in pain. My heart began beating faster.

“Oh...hell yes.” Lilli groaned. Her bloody mouth turned to a smile.

ᴀʀᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ꜰᴇᴇʟɪɴɢ ᴛʜɪꜱ ꜱᴜʀɢᴇ ᴏꜰ ᴅᴇᴛᴇʀᴍɪɴᴀᴛɪᴏɴ? ʜᴀᴘᴘɪɴᴇꜱꜱ ᴍɪɴɢʟɪɴɢ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴀɴɢᴇʀ? ᴀɴ ɪɴᴛᴏxɪᴄᴀᴛɪɴɢ ᴅᴇʟᴜꜱɪᴏɴ, ɪꜱ ɪᴛ ɴᴏᴛ?

His body began to crack - splinters emerging from a long gash in his spine. More and more lashes began to appear on his back, spraying black blood in the air.   
ʏᴏᴜ'ᴠᴇ ʙᴀꜱᴋᴇᴅ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ɪɢɴᴏʀᴀɴᴄᴇ ᴏꜰ ɪɴᴅᴇᴄɪꜱɪᴏɴ ꜰᴏʀ ʟᴏɴɢ ᴇɴᴏᴜɢʜ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʜɪꜱ ꜰᴇᴇʟꜱ...ᴀʟɪᴇɴ. ꜱᴛʀᴀɴɢᴇ. ᴘᴇʀʜᴀᴘꜱ ᴇᴠᴇɴ ᴘᴀɪɴꜰᴜʟ! 

Raul gasped for air as he fell to all fours. Bolts of electricity began to dance across his wounds. “Make...it…”   
ꜱᴛᴏᴘ? ᴡʜʏ ᴡᴏᴜʟᴅ ɪ? ᴘᴀɪɴ ɪꜱ ᴛʜᴇ ꜰɪʀꜱᴛ ꜱᴛᴇᴘ ᴛᴏ ꜱᴛʀᴇɴɢᴛʜ, ᴀɴᴅ ꜱᴛʀᴇɴɢᴛʜ ꜱʜᴀʟʟ ʟᴇᴀᴅ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛᴏ ᴘᴏᴡᴇʀ. ᴜɴʟᴇꜱꜱ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡɪꜱʜ ᴛᴏ ʀᴇᴛᴜʀɴ ᴛᴏ ʏᴏᴜʀ ɪɢɴᴏʀᴀɴᴛ ʟɪꜰᴇ, ᴀɴᴅ ᴀᴄᴄᴇᴘᴛ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ɴᴏᴛʜɪɴɢ ᴡɪʟʟ ᴄʜᴀɴɢᴇ ᴡɪᴛʜᴏᴜᴛ ᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ.

Raul stopped gasping in pain. He stopped bleeding.

ɪ'ʟʟ ᴏꜰꜰᴇʀ ʏᴏᴜ ᴀ ᴄʜᴏɪᴄᴇ - ᴀᴄᴄᴇᴘᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘᴏᴡᴇʀ ᴛᴏ ᴀᴄᴛ, ᴏʀ ᴅʀᴏᴡɴ ɪɴ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴀᴘᴀᴛʜʏ.

The electricity from his wounds began to grow, shooting wildly off around his back like a tesla coil. Samuel let me go, and once I gained my footing I grabbed the pistol.

“You...aren’t…” Raul slammed the ground with a fist, then glared at the doll with wild, veined eyes. “Going to win!”

He stood up fully, enveloped in white fire and dancing electricity. 

“Come on!”

**ɪ ᴀᴍ ᴛʜᴏᴜ, ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴏᴜ ᴀʀᴛ ɪ!**

The sparks from his body grew into a pure white before disappearing into the air like static. A flash of blinding light came from his body, one that made both me and Lilli wince away.

In front of Raul stood a tall, strong-limbed mannequin, wearing a long blue cape trimmed with white fur along with a brilliant, almost robotic-looking blue suit. A cravat was affixed to his neck, and the only facial markings I could see were a long, zig-zagged moustache and a brilliant gold crown. His hands and feet were covered in coiled copper wire, and he was wielding a long, silver rapier that was covered in dancing, sparking electricity. He was posed confidently, feet together, arm behind his back, rapier at the ready.

ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴛʜɪꜱ ᴘᴏᴡᴇʀ, ʏᴏᴜ ꜱʜᴀʟʟ ʟᴇᴛ ɴᴏ ᴏʙꜱᴛᴀᴄʟᴇ ꜱᴛᴀɴᴅ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴀʏ ᴛᴏ ʜᴀᴘᴘɪɴᴇꜱꜱ...ʀᴇᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀ, ʏᴏᴜ ᴍᴀᴅᴇ ᴀ ᴘʀᴏᴍɪꜱᴇ!

Raul smirked, though he looked exhausted. “Light them  _ up _ , Don Pedro.”

The doll licked it’s mouth with a long, slick, black tongue. “Shall we begin? Or do you have more little magic tricks to show me?”

It spat out more black across the ground, covering the concrete in giant pools. Don Pedro twitched his moustache before sprinting forward and striking his rapier across the ground. A giant arc of electricity spread across the ground, dancing across the black ooze and jumping up the doll’s arc of viscous spit. It’s head became enveloped in electricity that spread across the blood like lightning on water, and I could only imagine the pain it must feel as the shock spread to the mass of black that was inside it.

The doll screeched in pain, lunging forward and grabbing Don Pedro like it did to Hippolyta, bringing the princely-looking Persona to his mouth before chomping down on...thin air.

It looked around in confusion before it realized that Don Pedro was now on it’s head, posing triumphantly like a knight that had slayed a dragon. The doll tried to grasp up at it, but, with a single, fanciful flourish, he plunged his rapier into the doll’s head. It screamed in intense pain, the electricity coursing through it’s body and emerging in sparks from the multiple wounds he had, even shocking the hardened blood that made up it’s claws. 

“Augh! Please, stay still!” The doll kept grabbing up at Raul’s Persona, but the moment his claws reached anywhere close, Don Pedro disappeared and teleported somewhere else on the doll’s body, in seemingly disinterested or bored poses. After it apparently tired itself out, Don Pedro pierced open the doll’s eyes with a single swipe of his rapier, causing jets of pressurized black blood to shoot out. 

“Destroy it.” Raul commanded, with a single, exhausted breath.

Don Pedro followed it’s users command, channeling electricity across the brass coils on his wrists that danced between his arms. He coursed the sparks through his rapier until it was glowing with what looked like violent blue fire, then slashed it across the doll’s face.

The electricity shot throguh the doll’s eyes like wildfire, making it’s head vibrate and twitch like an electrocuted convict. It gripped it’s head in a futile attempt at defense, but it’s bloodied wrists only made the pain more horrible. Sparks flowed across the monster’s wounds, turning it into a living tesla coil, and it’s jagged, splintered grin turned into a pained grimace right. Steam came from it’s head as the plastic skin melted, and the glass bulbs that covered it’s eyes exploded, sending glass and black blood everywhere. It’s arms went limp, and it fell to the ground like a ragdoll.

Raul looked at the doll’s corpse for a solid second.

“Well, that was fun.” He announced.

“You feel alright?” Lilli put a hand on his shoulder.

Raul nodded. “Huh? Yeah. I feel fine.” he said, before passing out and falling to the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hm, I'm not sure why, but I think my descriptions read a bit...off for this chapter. I'm sorry if it confused anyone, but, y'know, it's somewhat hard to write surreal stuff...not that that's a real excuse.  
> Reminder that I set up a Discord server for the fic! You can join [Here](https://discord.gg/wXWrqYb). This specific link shouldn't expire for a while, and always remember that people without AO3 accounts or those who haven't commented/kudos'd/etc. are always welcome to come by and say hi!


	24. I Wish I Had Your Optimism

“Oh, _shit!”_

Lilli rustled Raul as he laid unconscious. “I knew this’d happen - shit, shit…”

Samuel let me down as gentle as he could. I felt marginally better, though my body still felt like it had been slammed against a wall by a pickup truck. I regained my balance, then knelt down to Raul’s body. He was breathing, thankfully, but his skin was pallid and thin - I was able to see the light purple veins on his neck and forehead.

Lilli, apparently, got tired of waiting around for him to wake up. “Hey!”

Raul mumbled something before Lilli kicked him in the ribs.

“Ow! Hey, what the fuck?”

“How do you feel?”

“My ribs hurt like hell.”

“Jackass.”

I helped him sit upright and grabbed his glasses before sitting next to him. He took a second to wipe them off and adjust them, then examined the two of us.

“Jesus, you guys look like crap.”

Lilli examined her hand as he said that, cracking her thumb until it sat right in it’s socket. I winced.

“How are you feeling?” I asked as softly as I could. “About...your Persona…”

“It…” He began, before coughing up...something, looking at his palm, and wiping it on his jeans. “It felt pretty...y’know, it felt like...I don’t know. But I loved it. I saw...I saw, like, double vision, but…”

Me and Lilli exchanged glances as Raul stared at his hand, examining it from different angles.

“Can I bring him out again? How do I do it?” He pumped his fist. “Persona! Come on! Go, Don Pedro!”

Nothing happened.

“He’s always like this. It takes him, like, an hour to actually get up,” Lilli grabbed Raul from underneath the shoulder and pulled him to his feet. “Alright, buddy, let’s go home.”

“Huh?”

“Wait, what?” I asked. “We can’t…”

Lilli shook her head. “What do you mean?”

“We can’t leave until we kill...whatever’s causing that!” I gestured to the giant body of the doll on the far side of the room.

“No, no, no…” Raul shook his head. “We...we can’t leave. We...have to save Max…”

I looked at him. He was clearly exhausted, loosely hanging off of Lilli’s shoulder, glasses on the verge of slipping off his face. I gently pushed them up.

“Fuckin...look, I don’t want to have to explain to your parents why you ain’t coming home.”

Raul looked at her. “I’m not going to die! I have a Persona now. That’s...what you have, right?”

“I don’t think you can use it, though…” I quietly affirmed. “You’re exhausted.”

“So what?”

“Remember how I was after I got Hippolyta?” Lilli shook him by the shoulder. “You know, like how fucked up I was?”

“So _what_?”

“Jesus, dude, you’re too out of it to think straight! We need to just...I don’t know…”

“Do we have any medicine? Stuff like that?”

“Man, I dunno. I don’t trust this place’s first aid stuff.”

The two of us looked again at Raul. His shirt was damp with sweat and a few flecks of that black blood, but he was still kind of in one piece. Her and I didn’t fair that better - her shirt was cut in a few places, and mine had a giant slice over the abdomen, and there were scattered bruises over our bodies. I couldn’t help but feel jealous - I’d have to guess her parents were used to her coming home like this, and Raul was relatively unscathed. I had some awkward questions to answer...again.

“Maybe the door’s still there?”

“Huh. Yeah, we didn’t try n’ check, did we?”

“I’m not leaving…” Raul sputtered out, weakly.

“Hell yeah you are!” Lilli shook him again. “You gotta get rest, man.”

“Why?”

Lilli groaned. “Oh my _God_ , it’s like going in circles with...fuck. Because you’re completely out of it. We still got idiots to fight, you’d die.”

He stayed silent.

“We don’t have any resources, either!” I chimed in. “I’d want...y’know, I have a pair of airsoft gloves at home for…” I balanced the pistol in my hands. Despite it being an apparently real gun, it still had the heft of a cheap plastic knockoff, so my aiming was off. “And we need, like...medicine...flashlights…”

“I’m not leaving…”

“Fuck’s sake! I’ll drag you if I gotta, I ain’t going to - “

“We don’t know how this works!” Raul snapped.

The two of us shut up.

“We don’t know if this is a one-time thing. What if we leave, and that’s it? What if Max dies? What if they pull their plug? What if their parents decide they don’t want a vegetable for the rest of their lives?” Raul yelled, seemingly jolting awake. “Massachusett law says that once their brain is gone, they’re dead. And there’s a lot of things that can go wrong! Maybe their cords get tangled, or - or something!”

Lilli opened her mouth, but quickly shut up and looked at the wall.

“What if they die? What if this is our only shot?”

Lilli hoisted Raul up. “I’ll take the one I can prevent rather than the one that’s outta my hands.”

“Then leave me behind. I’ll do my best, and if anything happens - “

“No fucking way!”

I tried to back away from their arguing, but the situation, how loud their voices were, the darkness...I put my hands over my ears, but I felt some kind of feeling boil in my stomach. My ears began burning, along with my brain, until I just…

“Shut **up**! Both of you!”

They looked at me like I was crazy. I lost whatever train of thought had started chugging, and the anger in my mind just disappeared - leaving me with a blank space.

“U-uh…”

Lilli and Raul exchanged glances.

“Look, I, just...we have to go, y’know? None of us feel good...but you...we don’t have a way out. Right now, we’re kind of stuck...so…”

“I can help!” Samuel stuck his head inbetween the three of us.

“Great time to enter the conversation…” Lilli mumbled.

“This is another thing I’ve been preparing for! I envisioned emergencies like this, so I wanted to take a more proactive solution. Please, stand back…”

He stepped in between us, wiped his hands together, grabbed...the air, and pulled.

He was literally pushing down nothing. The air beneath him apparently gave a lot of resistance for nothing, and he silently strained and forced it downwards. I then realized he was  _pulling_ it down - not pushing it away. He was tearing off nothing, and creating something.

Then, with a grand, final pull, Samuel tore away thin air to reveal a door. Reality buckled against his will. He literally created a door out of nothing. It was purple, stained glass - you know, what doors are  _normally_ made out of, without any handle, but it was the size of a door. I've really had enough of those things at this point.

"Oh...my God..."

"How the hell did you do that?!"

"I practiced!" Samuel put his hands on his hips, quite proud. "Now, this should bring us back to my Theater..."

" _Should_." I affirmed.

"Yes! Now, allow me." He pulled the door open, revealing...the lobby of the Theater. Of course...God dammit.

"Fine! Whatever." I threw my hands up and walked through. Lilli all but dragged Raul along - true to her word, I guess.

 

The box was still there, as was the clear window to the outside. It was not even sunset, but still late in the afternoon. Lilli threw Raul onto a couch, then lobbed an energy drink directly at his face. 

"Come on, you need to drive us home." 

Raul shrugged, exhausted.

"I'm gonna call..." I put my finger on Rowan's icon, but I hesitated. "Uh, actually, I think I'll...I'll just walk home."

"You sure? You look awful." Lilli asked, before quietly moving closer. "I can walk you there."

In all honesty, the idea of quietly dissapearing into the night had felt appealing for a while - why else would I ask to be bussed up here without accompaniment? "I'm good. I still have the, uh..." I gestured to the gun in my pocket - which, I guessed, had returned to it's pellet-gun like state. 

"Uh, hey, wait. Tell him about the, uh...guy. The one."

I glanced around Lilli to see Raul silently slumped against the arm of the couch. "I don't think he'd remember."

Lilli looked over her shoulder and rolled her eyes. "Alright, yeah."

"We can talk about it tomorrow."

She rubbed the back of her head, looking at Raul one more time, and then at me, quickly examining the bruises I had on my neck and what little of my arms I showed. "Look, I still don't know...y'know, what the hell kind of bullshit we've gotten ourselves into...and, I mean, I still don't know you all the way, but...I mean, this is a helluva way to get to know someone."

I nodded. My cheeks grew hot.

"Hey, uh, once this is all over, we should hang out somewhere. Y'know, like...not having to worry about Persona bullshit like the last couple of weeks."

"That'd be great."

"You sure you don't need someone to get you home?"

"I, uh..." I wringed my hands, glancing at the summer sky. "I think Raul needs you more."

She nodded. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yeah."

I silently waved goodbye to Samuel and pushed against the doors of the Theater.

 

The air was kind of still - well, I guess, as still as an island town could get. It was a suprisingly quiet Saturday on the town, but, y'know, I still didn't know how this place... _was_. I was still trying to get some kind of feel for it, but the Persona bullshit, the dead kid, me still feeling like I had to be on my toes at school, even though Kelly was thousands of miles away...and the nightmares. The fucking nightmares. I still wished this had turned out to be normal. No Personas, no Sam, no Igor, Boris, the Theater...maybe even no Lilli or Raul or Max. I would've loved to just be an invisible person for once in my life.

I walked to my house in relative silence, only texting Rowan once to say  **Walking home**. I had my head down, my hoodie zipped up, and my hands in my pockets. I passed by people in the street without making any sort of sound or looking up, but most of them didn't seem to care.

I finally reached my street and climbed the stairs to Rowan's house, pulling open the door to the sunroom and fiddling with the lock to the house itself. "I'm home!"

"Oh, cool! Did you have fun?"

I followed Rowan's voice to the computer room. "I...yeah, I guess I did."

"Well, that's good. How're your friends doing?"

"They're fine."

"What did you say their names were, again?"

I pushed open the door to the computer room to see Rowan sitting against one of the desks, inspecting the laptop he had just gotten, poking around it's guts with a flashlight and a pair of tweezers.

"Raul and Lilli."

"Alright. Hey, c'mere."

I did so, making sure most of my injuries were as obscured as possible. 

"So, this thing doesn't have any PS/2 ports to plug in a mouse...it was a workstation and all, so it had to keep things cheap. You know what it does have?"

"What?" I asked, pretending I knew what he was talking about.

Rowan gave me a grin, flipped the computer over, and pressed a button on the side. A small, plastic rectangle popped out, attached to the computer on a flimsly piece of aluminum. It had two buttons on it. He moved it around, and a small pointer on a black screen mirrored it's movements almost exactly.

"Wow."

"This is why I love these things! They tried  _everything_. Like, you had this, that VCR thing I showed you...gigabyte storage on those little tape decks...man, and the games. They got really ambitious. Did I ever show you why I wanted to get into law?"

I shook my head. He got up, went to the shelves of games that took up a fair bit of the room, and took out a box the size of an encyclopedia. It had a picture of a smarmy 80's man in a suit, his hand holding a pair of folded up sunglasses, his foot planted on a wooden office desk scattered with papers. Behind him was a statue of Lady Justice.  _Red Blackstone: Court of Law_.

"I played this game for  _ages_ when I was a kid. Everyone else was doing those RTSs or shooters, this was _my_ game."

"It looks old."

He seemed kind of insulted, but quickly laughed. "Yeah, I guess I am. It was based on a one-season law procedural from, like...1990? This thing was more remembered than the show. It's deep as hell, too." He cracked open the box and pulled out a book the size and thickness of a pocket bible. "This thing was the law code of New York in 1989. The  _entire_ code. And you needed it."

I looked inside the box. Inside was a pair of Red Blackstone branded sunglasses, a box of (hopefully fake) cigarettes, an empty slot that was labeled  _tie_ , and five floppy discs.

"Uh, hey, hold up."

Oh no.

He gestured at my eye. "Where'd you get the shiner?"

"It, uh, it was an accident."

He seemed dumbfounded. "The first thing you tell  _me_ \- an actual  _lawyer_ -is that it was an accident."

"I-it was!" I tried to protest, but then I realized that I was fighting an uphill battle.

He sighed and closed the box. "Look, I have to talk to you about that. How many times have you come home with weird injuries? That's something I've been worrying about."

I shut up.

"Okay, look, just...let me ask, is it something that I should be worrying about? Something that I need to contact someone about?"

I shook my head.

"Anything you need to...go to the hospi-"

"No."

"Okay, okay," Rowan nodded. "Alright, look, you're a teenager. You've done some stupid crap, I'm sure. I sure as hell did some stupid crap. So, let's make a deal. I won't ask you about them or worry  _too_ much about them, but if they ever get serious, I'm calling your mom, and I want you to tell me about them. And I want to pick you up from places after dark. Alright?"

I nodded.

"Shake on it."

I did so.

"Well, it's now legally binding, as far as I'm concerned. Go lay on the couch for a bit, if you want. I'll get some food ready."

I nodded. Thanks."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the shorter chapter this time around, but I wanted to make to focus on good interactions aside from superfluous stuff, and so the next two (?) chapters won't be such a mood whiplash when compared to this one. Especially the next one, since I'm thinking it'll be very dry and info dump-y.  
> [Discord Server Again!](https://discord.gg/JZgSvB) Feel free to join if you haven't already - as long as you're not a dick, everyone's welcome!


	25. If I Sit Still Maybe I'll Get Out Of Here

**Sunday, August 12th**

I stared at the popcorn ceiling for a bit too long. 

It was early morning - early enough that the world outside really  _ wasn’t _ ...it looked more like a black void than any kind of sky. I had just woken up from a dream about someone trapping me in my old room’s closet and strangling me in the nude, and I had the feeling that I wasn’t going to be able to get back to sleep.

I watched the empty screen of the television for a bit, half-expecting for it to turn on and show that clown show. The VHS tape I had gotten from Rowan was still resting above my laptop, and I really wanted evidence of that clown thing existing, for...whatever reason. My phone wasn’t blinking, just a green light. The room itself felt...tepid. Normal. I guess. It was way too normal for me.

I stretched my legs a bit, wincing in pain with every twist and flex. I don’t...think I had any burns or wounds, other than some bruises. The only kind of injury from last night - well, the only one that was distinct - was when I saw Puck and Hippolyta get crushed by that...doll-thing. And then Raul awakened, and…

I’m getting too used to this stuff.

Thoughts came to my head that I had to chase out. I bit my tongue. For a brief moment, I considered calling my parents, letting me go home, let this entire experiment end. Let Raul and Lilli solve their own thing. I then realized that it was such an incredibly selfish thought, even for me...I felt awful.

This room was making me feel awful.

I got up and sat upright in my bed, ignoring the spikes of pain my joints created whenever I would even think about moving them. I waited until they stopped screaming before I attempted to walk around, flipping up the light switch, taking a long look at my black-and-purple body, glancing down at my big toe that was seemingly a bit too knocked out of place. I didn’t know what to do, but I didn’t want to sit in this room and just keep thinking these awful thoughts. I threw on the largest t-shirt I had, just enough to cover everything above my pelvis, rested against the dresser and imagining shooting my limbs off with some kind of 45-70 revolver just to get them to  _ stop hurting _ …

I walked outside. Climbing down the stairs seemed like a monumental task, but I managed to rally myself down them with minimal pauses to manage my pain. Part of me was saying I deserved this, and the other parts didn’t do much to tell it to shut up. I used my phone to light up the rest of the disturbingly still house, waddling towards the kitchen with the heels of my feet, toes stretched out in some kind way to mitigate the pain. I was kind of hungry, thirsty - whatever. I just kind of wanted to gnaw on something. I opened the fridge, looking in disdain at the pitiful selection of snacks, goodies, or pretty much anything that I could eat. I grabbed one of two cups of chocolate pudding before tossing it back upon realizing what it reminded me of from last night. 

God, last night. I hope Raul was okay...and I really hoped Max was still, y’know...okay…

I felt like I was accumulating enough scars for an entire lifetime.

I pulled out a small travel bottle of cranberry juice as my only choice. The cold plastic did feel good against my hands, though, which was some sort of consolation. 

Now what?

I waddled around the corner, glanced at a door I never noticed before, and, against my better judgement, opened it. It was the stairs to the basement. Maybe later, when climbing down stairs didn’t seem like a death sentence. I let myself sit for a second against the wall before walking on my heels to the living room. The sky had only gotten the slightest bit lighter, which made me feel better about getting up at such an ungodly hour in the first place. I looked around for stuff to do - hopefully something that wouldn’t wake Rowan up.

I shone my light down the hall, reflecting against the oak door to the computer room.

Eh. Why not.

I opened the door and flipped the switch. Rowan’s ripped-apart laptop was still there, along with an open notebook full of notes about parts, specs, oddities with the machine, stuff like that. It I was pretty interesting to flip through for a second, even if i didn't know what any of it meant.

There were about three different actual, working computers that I could see - one that was a perfectly beige box with a rainbow star and heart logo - which, now that I thought about it, was the older logo for Lovelace, the same tech company that made my phone - though, mine was black, shiny, and simple enough that a child could use it - or, maybe, someone like me. The other computer was a beige-and-woodgrain affair with a large tower and a monitor as wide as it was deep, and a slightly more modern black computer with obvious places for LEDs that’d light up once turned on - it was like a more subdued version of the ultra-awesome-sick-great-wicked gaming PC’s that the few streamers I watched used. Eventually, though, my eyes were drawn to the shelves upon shelves of games, software, big colorful boxes of things that just screamed Fun. I could only see the first five rows of shelves without having to use a chair, but it was pretty much all I needed. 

They were organized like a library - by genre, year, maker, good or bad. Each different part of the shelf had little masking tape-and-marker labels, somewhat less professional than I’d expect from a lawyer, I guess. Not that I knew what a lawyer’s video game collection would look like. It felt like he had a bit of everything - real time historical strategy, flight sim, various little niche games - including that lawyer game he showed me last night - but my eyes were, naturally, drawn to the first person shooter games. I pulled out a fairly large, but surprisingly light box, completely covered in shiny black material except for the back copyright information and the front cover - a picture of an armored knight shooting at a lunging demon with an assault rifle.  _ Desecration - Totally Defiled Edition _ . 

I felt the embossed text, the small bumps made by the bullets and the knight’s shield, and looked at the furious, somewhat familiar-looking sneering visage of the demon. The black, shimmering cover made it seem both inticing and disgusting.

I brought the box and juice over to the Lovelace computer, pressed what I guessed was a power button, and waited for it to boot up. While it was working, I opened the  _ Desecration _ box and looked inside. Five purple floppy discs, a pewter figurine of the knight from the cover, an instruction manual, and a few pieces of yellow legal pad paper, obviously added after the game was bought, of cheat codes, map secrets, and registration information.

The Lovelace computer showed the logo, and then...a blank screen. Completely black. I kept thinking it would burst open and flood the room with blood, but it didn’t. I closed the box and looked in, and noticed that there was some basic information on the computer at the top, followed by a blinking, white box.

I looked around for a floppy drive, realized it was right on the front, and took the first drive off the stack and plugged it in. Shoving a cartridge into a slot...it was always kind of oddly satisfying. 

Nothing happened.

I pressed a few buttons on  the keyboard, but nothing happened.

I typed ‘RUN’ and hit enter. Nothing happened.

Well, shit.

I was just about to give up and go back to bed when my eyes fell on the instruction manual. Of course! I kind of missed when games came with these. I opened it up and flipped through it until I hit the system information. ‘Running DESECRATION on Lovelace DLRS’. I followed the instructions - which was basically just to type in a thing telling the computer to run the disk in the drive - and saw the screen fill up with a wild-eyed, barbarian-haired knight standing above a dead, purple demon, firing a rocket launcher and swinging a broadsword at a cluster of reanimated zombies. The menu options filed in, and I pressed ‘NEW GAME’. It asked me what difficulty I wanted, on a scale of  **_‘I like it soft’_ ** to ‘ **_I will die a noble death!’_ ** I hit the one in the middle,  **_‘I will slay everything’_ ** .

My character was dropped into the dark keep of a castle, with only a small dagger. No story, nothing. I guess I was too spoiled by modern games.

It took me a few minutes to get used to the controls - WASD for movement, sure, but arrow keys were look around, and space was both shoot and interact - no jump. And I really didn’t know how to rebind them - the menus were a weird mess of layered options and settings. Then again, I was just happy to have something to get my mind off the pain.

I figured I would only play for an hour or two, but by the time I saw what I assumed was the ending screen, the sun had rose to it’s peak and the light from the window was halfway across the room. I saw the evil wizard Killmarcus’s body explode in a gory heap, a wall of text congratulating me for closing the portal to DemonKinde, before saying that I had only cleansed the  _ castle _ from the demon horde - the rest of the kingdom was overrun, and to close the portals for good, I would have to travel to DemonKinde myself - “So don’t get comfy! This is only the start of your Desecration journey. Insert disk 2 of 3 and play Episode 2: A HARD DAY’S KNIGHT.”

“Julie?”

“Huh?”

“Oh! Wow!” Rowan leaned across my chair to read the text. “What’s your time?”

I shrugged, but he gently brushed my fingers off the keyboard to hit the ‘ENTER’ key. There was a leaderboard, with RaNny at the very top with a little under 20 minutes. I was near the middle ‘NEW PLAYER’ - with a little over 3 hours.

3 hours?! No, that can’t be right.

“Ha! You didn’t stay up all night, did you?”

“No, I...I just kind of woke up in the middle, uh...I mean, not that I don’t stay up all night...I don’t really have to put in effort.”

Rowan wrly smiled. “You gonna play the second episode?”

I shrugged.

“Hey, take your time. I got the first game, plus, uh...two bonus episodes, _Desecration 2, Desecration 3-D,_ _Desecration: End of an Empire_ …uh, and I think I have the reboot on preorder.”

“You’re a fan of it, huh?”

He laughed. “Man, it’s Desecration. Everyone’s a fan.”

I nodded. “So, uh…” I hit ‘ENTER’ again, put in ‘Julie :)’ as my name, and pressed eject. “Can I just stay in here for today? Unless I have to go out.”

He nodded. “I don’t see why not.”

I saw my phone blink a bit, and swiped it open as Rowan left. Lilli had put in a message in the group chat.

**raul still fukin tired i spent the nite with him and hes still asleep!!! The fuck**

She had included a short video of her throwing a book at his torso and him not moving. 

**Is he okay**

**persona shit mannnn it takes a lot outta you**

**Are we doing stuff today**

**afaik no**

**Ok**   
**Is Max alright**

**yeAh gabe said there doin fine actually kind of responsive or smth**

**Do you think what we did worked**

**hell yeah!!! just gotta do it more**

**Are we gonna visit the one dude**

**idk wait til tomorrow if hes up**

There was a pause, before she sent a picture of Raul’s sleeping face with several small objects stacked carefully on top.

I loaded in the ‘HARD DAY’S KNIGHT’ episode of Desecration. I was kind of relaxed, knowing that I got a day to myself, and that Max was doing fine, but...I guess, at the same time, I felt kind of selfish for not diving in and saving him. Even if I was covered in bruises.

The moment I typed ‘enter’ on my command to the computer to load the floppy, my phone rang. I jumped, because of course I did. It was mom.

I wheezed a couple times - I guess just to get the feeling of pain out of my throat - and picked up.

“Hi?”

“Julie! Good afternoon! It is afternoon there, right?”

“I...think we share the same time zone…”

“Oh...oh, you’re right! Sorry.”

“It’s ok.”

“You having a good few weeks so far? I bet it’s really pretty this time of year, before all the tourists come in…”

“Uh...yeah...it’s a really clear day…” I looked out the window, watching a family walk their dog past the house. It was a surprisingly sunny day, without clouds or any kind of weather whatsoever, really. “I’m getting used to it here…”

She sighed a big. “I really miss you, y’know? But I’m glad you’re doing well.”

I had to keep myself from laughing.

“Oh, are you doing yoga?”

“N-no, I don’t...I don’t really have the room, I, I mean, the mat. I didn’t bring my mat.”

“Hey, wait!” I heard her cover her phone with her hand and started talking to my dad. I heard a soft slap and them both chuckling. “Okay, don’t worry, we’ll send that up soon.”

“Thanks.”

“Have you, uh, you made any friends yet?”

My mind drifted to seeing Lilli get crushed, and Raul awaken by growing lashes in his back.

“I...uh, I’ve met some people.”

“Really? You have to tell me about them sometime! They’re nice, right? Everyone’s been nice to you so far?”

Every time she asked me that, I just remembered that I never told them about Kelly. “Yeah, it’s been a good time...school’s fine…”

“That’s...that’s good! I’m happy. I’m...I’m gonna let you off the hook now, but call me later, ok?”

“I will.”

“Bye! I love you!”

“Love you too.”

#### Monday, August 13th

Nobody interrupted me on the bike ride to school, which was a first. It felt pretty nice. I still hurt, but thankfully I managed to coast most of the way to the building. Then I realized I’d have to walk up stairs for most of it. Shit.

At least my black eye was gone. Most of my bruises had healed when I took a shower last night, but it still felt like my bones were being crushed by an anvil whenever I had to take a step.

I also realized I had to get an answer for Ms. Signe today. I’ll just...I guess I’ll just play it by ear.

I slowly climbed the stairs, trying not to draw attention, to my room, sat down, and tried to look as invisible as a 5-foot-tall black girl constantly wincing in pain could.

I paid attention to the lesson as best as I could - a quick rundown on the political climate in Europe that lead to the first explorers. She stressed how fucking the early visitors were, especially the Spanish, one kid raised his hand and asked how we knew that since they didn’t leave records, and Ms. Signe pretty much stoked him over the coals, including pulling out a book that was full of primary sources for a lot of American history and reading an account by an early Spanish padre about how horrible his compatriots were treating the native population. It was the third day and we were already getting ignorant students.

I didn’t bother to leave once class was done, instead just accepting that Ms. Signe would grab me. 

“Soooo?” she asked, almost bouncing with excitement. “Can I get you to get into this class? Are you gonna do it?”

“No, I...I really just don’t think I have the time for it. Thank you, though!”

“Oh, wonderful! Wonderful!” She hugged me, before realizing that we were still in school. Not that I minded.

Wait, didn’t I say no? That...that must’ve…

Oh,  _ no _ .

“I’ll be sure to help! I can arrange an exam in October, but I can help you study and learn all the little thingies that you need to! Not that I think you need my help,  _ gummen _ , but I’d love to have a part in this! Oh! So exciting!”

I gave a weak thumbs up.

Lilli was waiting for me in P.E. as usual, but she had already dressed - thankfully. 

“How’s Raul?”

“He’s better.” she shrugged. “But he thinks we should go again tonight. I’m not letting him. He’s still pale as all hell. I pushed him and it took him a whole fuckin’ minute to get up.”

“What?”

“He asked me to!” she threw her hands up. “Ugh, anyway...yeah, Tuesday. Hopefully.” 

“Okay.”

“Also, uh...if you can meet him, tell him ‘bout that one weird Persona dude.”

“Will do.”

“You still hurt from that doll thing?”

I shrugged. “Yeah, a little, I guess.”

She reached into my bag and pulled out my shorts and shirt, stuffing them in her own bag, then walked over to the two goth girls that still hadn’t dressed. She exchanged some words, she put her hand on the wall next to them in some kind of power move, and when they laughed in her face, I watched her stomp right on the one girl’s ankle, digging her sole into the joint.

The room went silent. The two of them nodded quickly and walked over to their locker.

“Oh…”

She shrugged as she returned. “Just wanted to make sure you got some fucking peace and quiet for once.”

“You could’ve hurt her!”

“Who cares if they get hurt?”

“But - “

She stared at me, like I was talking crazy. I shrunk back down into the bench, against the wall.

“Nobody gives a shit about it at this point.” She stared ahead in the distance as the P.E. teacher called us out. “That’s just what happens with me.”

I walked to the computers class, still shaken a bit. I passed by a bulletin board without a lot on it - new year and all - but I did see a small, seemingly handwritten and copied flyer for a girl’s golf team.

Huh.

I looked at the one other thing on the board - an ad to join studen council, and I noticed the very clear stamp that meant the school principal approved it. The other flyer didn’t.

Against my better judgement, I pulled off one of the tabs for the club - there wasn’t a room, a time, just ‘Louise Dutch’ and a number.

I mean, golf was kind of like shooting mortars or something. It might be fun...and it was better than nothing.

I tried to find Raul at the end of the day, but no such luck. He wasn’t with the other people I normally saw him hang around, nor was he...well, I didn’t really know where else he’d be. I pulled out my phone and texted  **Hey can I have a second** at him.

I walked to my bike as slow as possible, waiting for a response.

**What’s up?**

**I think we should go on Wendesday rather than tomorrow I have something I wanna show you**

I saw the little word bubble pop up and down for a minute or two. It made me feel awful. 

**Why?**

**I think I met another personal user and he knows whats up.** **  
** **Personal.** **  
** **Persona.** **  
** The bubble popped up again. 

**Tell me tomorrow.**

**Hows Max doing.**

**Still barely fine.** **  
** **Gabe says their parents are looking at bringing in some Chinese doctors to see what’s up. Something like that. Best treatment money can buy.** **  
** **They’re coming at the end of August, and if so they’ll probably move him to Boston or maybe New York.** **  
** **I don’t know what they’ll do to him.**

I felt my stomach drop.

**Thats scary.**

**Yeah.**

I paused for a bit, sitting on the curb next to my bike. Cars drove past to pick up kids, but the majority of them just walked home - talking, laughing, etc. 

**I’m not scared about it, though.** **  
** **We’re going to get them out of there. We have time, and with Persona, it feels a lot easier than it was.**

**Yeah.**

**I’ll see you tomorrow.**

**Ok** .

I got on my bike and rode home, millions of emotions bubbling in my stomach - hope and despair conflicting, fear and confidence, anger and my own personal strength.

We’re going to do this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sure this chapter is fine, but I ended up taking a 5 hour nap the moment I got home and really wasn't able to put in as much content as I had hoped. I'm still pretty happy with how it came out! Hope y'all enjoy.  
> Also, just so nobody is afraid of me plotting out Max's dungeon as long as I can have it, I do plan for it to be finished inside, at most, two days in-story. Look forward to that!
> 
> [Persona: Unconscience Discord Server](https://discord.gg/wXWrqYb). Feel free to join, especially if you're a guest or someone else who can't communicate with me directly through AO3! I've also been sharing a lot of trivia as of late just for fun, so if that's your jam, hit us up!


	26. Explain the Infinite

####  **Tuesday, August 14th**

Ms. Signe had already made plans to move me out of History - all I really needed was to get my counselor, who I haven’t met yet, to sign off on the deal. If it was anything like my old bunch of dicks that made my IEP, they’d have selective deafness - turn a blind ear to my bullies, and shut me down when I asked to be placed in higher classes because ‘I’m not fit for those’, or ‘they wouldn’t mesh well with someone like me’, trying to not say the obvious - they didn’t want any autistic people in the classes that scored the best.

Raul and Lilli were texting back and forth throughout my classes, eventually forcing me to turn my phone on silent. It was mostly about Max’s condition, Raul sharing a lot of the information that I had guessed he learned from Gabe. It wasn’t until my solitary lunch in the restroom that I really paid attention to the chatroom. My little icon went green, showing that I had it open.

**Are we going to the dude today?**

**dunno aks julie**

**Hello hey**

**Julie, what’s up with the other Persona guy you were talking about?**

**He grabbed me last week and asked if I had a perosna and then was talking about the theater and what’s up I think he knows more than we do**

**Did he look trustworthy?**

**Looked like teddy Roosevelt**

**???**

Raul linked a picture of Teddy Roosevelt **.**

**Ah Old fucker**

**Yeah and he wasn’t aggressive or anything he was just kind of** ****  
**Uh** **  
** **Intersting**

**???**

**I dont know I just want to talk to him and see what’s up**

**I agree. We need to know more about what’s going on if we want to save Max.**

**And what if it doesnt stop??**

**I don’t see why it would keep going, but we’ll have to see.**

**kinda hopn i t dkesnt tbh**

**Why??**

**eh**

**Julie, did he tell you where he lived?**

I scratched my head, trying to remember what exactly he told me.

**Baby blue house near Boston I think???**

**in or near**

**Near? Maybe on the West coast of the island.**

**Sounds right?**

**West coast is the oldest housing district, if it helps.**

**Ok that makes sense**

I heard the chime ring and slowly got up, making sure to monitor the chat. 

**Let’s meet up in the patio after school to regroup.**

**Ok**

I went to go wash my hands before freezing in my place.

A small group of talkative, flashy-looking girls filtered into the bathroom, still talking about summer break, boyfriends, whatever. I had brief and unwelcome memories of the Five flash in my mind as I stared at myself in the mirror. Bad ones. Ones involving tight, closed spaces.

I felt the room close in, and the air got sucked up by everyone else’s lungs.

I saw the reflection of a tanned white girl point at me, almost dismissively. Hand on my shoulder.

I elbowed my way out the room and escaped, bumping a bruise on my shoulder on the way out that almost caused me to flinch, but I knew I couldn't waste any time at all. It wasn’t until I reached a bench halfway down the hall that I stopped to catch my breath. I felt like I was going to throw up.

God dammit, you fucking idiot. You fucking reactionary idiot. Why did you have to make a scene for yourself? Why not punch her in the nose like last time and get suspended four days into the year? Fuck, fuck, fu

“Uh?”

I tightened my lips and shut up.

“Are you ok?”

I hesitantly turned around and saw a tall girl, bending down to talk to little me. She was black, wearing a green ensemble of what looked like designer clothes - not from any store I knew. She was really pretty, probably older than me, and I had recognized her from the group in the bathroom - and, I think, I had seen her beforehand. Maybe just brushing with her on the street or something. Nobody like her would talk to me on her own volition, anyway.

“Sorry, we didn’t mean to scare you…” she cautiously smiled. “Is everything ok?”

I nodded.

“You forgot this, by-the-by.” She pulled up my backpack, and I hesitantly grabbed it with shaking hands, afraid of her having looked through it or slipped something in - not that I knew what she could’ve done.

“Are you new here? I’m Pri-”

I quickly nodded and fast walked away from her.

Better safe than sorry. 

 

I had calmed down considerably once Computers came around. I found my spot in the computer lab, took out a small rubber band I had found on the floor, and absentmindedly flicked it across my fingers. 

Mr. Cumberland was struggling to bring a big, black computer tower to his desk, handling it with the least care possible. He took a moment to glare at us, then kept messing with the box, trying to place in in a correct orientation known only to him. He then retrieved a set of screwdrivers from his desk.

“Alright, I think it’s time to learn about these devil machines, and the best way to start is to take this poor piece of work apart - piece by piece. This is the  _ same _ model you have in front of you right now, I agreed to have this taken out of my paycheck, but this is a very, very good investment,” He picked up a screwdriver and started taking off the top. “Be sure you have your phones turned to this - don’t even have to turn the camera on, just let the men behind the cameras watch every last screw.”

He took off the top and pulled out the fan. “What do you think this is?”

Nobody spoke. He turned around to the board and wrote ‘FAN’. 

“This is your  _ first _ clue that nothing with these computing machines is as they seem. This is plastic! Metal! Electricity! They don’t heat up that much unless you’re doing something  _ way too intense _ with them. What do you think they’re doing?”

The class went quieter.

“Surveilance! This is all about surveilance!” He waved the fan box around. “They’re sending everything to the gov! They’re sending everything they have to it, and it takes up a lot of power! The CPU use you’re usually seeing is just what’s  _ not _ being sent to the state. Whenever you look at it, add another 100%, and that’s the amount. That’s why the fan runs!”

He dug around in the computer a bit more before pulling out what I think was the motherboard. “Every. Last. Bit. Of. Data. It’s all on here. This thin, thin little piece of metal has everything you’ve ever searched, everything you’ve ever talked about on it. This has  _ everything _ ! This is what they  _ sell! _ Imagine what the government is  _ hiding _ from us! I’ve seen footage that would blow your tiny little minds up!”

“Are we gonna learn about computers?” said the bravest man on Earth.

“YOU! ARE!”

Mr. Cumberland pulled out what I could only guess was an older hard drive. “This is what powers it! This is what you have to know about! This thing transmits  _ everything _ to the state! And, guess what? I KNOW! And now, all these kids know too!”

We were silent. Mr. Cumberland stared at the hard drive.

“What are you hiding?”

We stayed silent.

He started screaming at it.

 

Once school ended I walked to the courtyard, kind of anxious, but not entirely fearful. I guess it was...excitement. Not that I was completely familiar with the feeling. Raul was already sitting down, browsing something on his phone.

“Uh, hey.”

Raul waved, not looking at me. He was as focused as I’ve ever seen him.

“What, uh…” I sat down and fidgeted. “What’re’ya looking at?”

“I looked up what I think is the house, got some more info about Max, and started looking up anything I could about Persona.”

“You…”

He sighed and adjusted his glasses. “No, I don’t think it’d be public knowledge, but it couldn’t hurt. Just some weird and inconsistent forum posts that really didn’t have a lot of information.”

“Forum posts? Like…”

“Fringe stuff. I couldn’t tell if they were whacked out on drugs or onto something...probably both.”

“Can I see?”

‘I’ll link you tonight.”

Lilli stepped out with a crowd of meandering students, yawning and stretching. “Hey, hey.”

“You ready?”

“Huh? I thought we were gonna talk about it?”

“I think I already found the house. We can talk on the drive.”

“Wait, what? How’d you already find a house?”

Raul smirked. “I ain’t secretary of the Lydon Historical Society just because I look good.”

“Course not, you look like shit.”

Raul’s smile deflated, and I had to summon every urge in my body to not laugh.

 

Despite Raul’s promise, we stayed mostly silent on the drive to the west part of the island. I didn’t think I was on this part before, and as we neared the long stretch of micro-micro mansions that made up the district. I saw a short, squat lighthouse that Raul commented was the oldest electrical building in the city. 

We drove around for a bit, before Lilli pointed out a blue house squished between two others on an awkward curved road. We pulled into a small, unused, unattached driveway and examined the house.

It was...boring. The only notable thing was a small plastic flamingo on the front, fresh out of the box.

“So, is this dude gonna come out in a Hawaiin shirt and tell us how to kill monsters?” Lilli smirked, flicking the flamingo.

“I mean, I probably would like that.” Raul shrugged. He took out that big, bulletproof camera he had bought and took a quick picture of the house, then climbed up the stairs.

“Julie, is this dude, like...weird? At all?”

“I think so.”

“No, like, weird-weird.”

I shrugged. “Dunno.”

“You gonna knock?” Lilli asked, before positioning herself to pound on the door. Raul swiped her hand out of the air and did a simple, polite knock.

There was silence.

I looked at the two of them awkwardly. I...wasn’t hallucinating that dude, right?

Raul knocked again. “Uhhh….hello?”

There was slight grumbling beyond the door. “Dammit, I should’ve known...didn’t get ready...ah, dammit…”

We heard about twenty different locks operate from the other side of the door, giving me less hope that this dude would be sane. 

The door finally open, showing the somewhat-jolly looking man behind him - dressed the same as I remembered, minus the suit jacket and showing a pair of tight supsenders. 

“Good afternoon! Good afternoon! I trust you two are the other Persona users I’ve been hearing so much about?”

“Who’s been telling you about us?” Lilli said, surprisingly upset.

“Nobody, nobody...don’t fret, your secret is quite safe. Come in! Let me show you around.”

We quietly filed into the house, Lilli holding a hand over her pocket just in case.

The foyer of the house was...cramped. It was dark, dusty, full of wooden boxes and books, with the only real furniture being a pair of velvet chairs, a grandfather clock in the back, and a set of stairs hugging the right wall.

Something flared up in my nose, and I sneezed. 

“Bless you!” the man said. “My apologies, I need to dust a bit. A lot of my keepsakes are old, and…”

“No, no, not that…” I rubbed my nose a bit, and tried to hold it together or stuff it up. “Do you have a cat? Dog?”

“God, hope it’s not a dog…” Raul said under his breath.

“Yes, I do have some cats - two, to be exact. Wonderful little creatures. Are you allergic?”

I nodded, but tried to smile through the twitching of my nose. “Yeah, but I like cats, so…”

“Foolhardiness! I appreciate it. Ah, but let’s retreat to my study for the time being. Don’t let the little rascals in there, regardless. Too many things to get their noses in.” He rambled, with the slightest hint of affection.

“Uh, thanks, Mr…”

“Carter!” He turned towards Raul, smiling. “[Mr. Randolph Carter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOAdLrYEd6k), self-styled ambassador of American Persona wielders, researchers of Persona, related phenomena, ‘sailor of the sea of the soul’, as one nice fellow put it a number of years ago...ah, sorry, sorry. You are?”

“Raul Francisco de Paula Douglas.” the two shook hands. Raul had a kind of cautious smile on his face.

“Lilli Nai-ming.” 

“And this is Julieanne Bousher!” He beamed at me, like my grandad used to. “You can thank her for arranging this meeting.”

I nodded. He took a step back, examined us, and smiled again. “Well, if this is what the new breed of Persona users look like in this great country, I believe we are in good hands.”

Lilli rolled her eyes. 

Carter’s study was seemingly two stories - the ceiling had been knocked out, replaced with a balcony and bookshelves that ran up to the ceiling. There were three oak chairs set in front of an ornate, carved wooden desk, along with two couches that matched the ones in the foyer. The only other noticeable object in the room was a tall painting behind the desk - a large, humanoid, wild-eyed monster eating a ragged, limp body. 

Raul’s jaw dropped. “What are these books?”

“Hmm...occult tomes, mostly, a few pamphlets I can find that relate to our history, old journals from suspected Persona users...a fair amount of rummage sale finds, encyclopedias…” He waved his hand as he tried to think. “You’re free to browse sometime later. After we talk, you three are always free to come back whenever you wish.”

Raul nodded. Lilli rubbed her shoulder as she looked around and awkwardly sat in one of the chairs. 

“What’s the, uh…” I pointed at the horrifying painting behind Carter.

His face turned grim. “It’s a...reminder. Personas are mostly obedient, but can turn volatile. Respect is important. Don’t forget.”

I nodded.

“You have a Persona?” Lilli asked. “Ain’t they...I…”

“Oh, you didn’t think you were the  _ only _ people on this Earth with this power, did you?” Carter smirked. “Ah, well, I suppose it’s natural, there have been a few cases where some lucky Persona users had to learn them all on their own...it’s quite rare to actually have any sort of expert on the subject.”

Raul nodded. “So...what are they?”

“Isn’t that the damn question?” Carter laughed. “There’s theories, ideas, half-formed thoughts, established rules, consistencies, and about as many cases that break the last two,” he sighed before sitting down at his desk. “Simply put, they’re parts of you. They’re your embodiment of the extreme - they’re what you see yourself as, what others see you as, and what the Persona wants itself to be. Masks, simply put - masks to hide yourself behind and protect yourself against the horrors of the hidden mind. Some see them as tools, weapons - but it’s a disingenuous thought. They’re living beings that are tied to you - and it’s wise to keep yourself from forgetting it.”

“But...what are they? Aliens?” Lilli rubbed her forehead. “God, none of it makes any damn sense.”

“Your fault, my dear, is the fault of all humans - you attempt to rationalize it.”

“What?”

He turned to Raul. “If I were to tell you what a Persona was, I would be lying, no matter my answer. Our sciences can not categorize it. Can we affect it? Can we induce it? Yes. Have we been able to capture one and make it tell us it’s own secrets? No.”

“What...creates them?” Raul asked, clearly getting exasperated. “Do we know that?”

“You’ll quickly find the answer to any sort of scientific based question is ‘no.’ In order to truly study a Persona, you must understand that nothing you know can truly exist. This universe that chooses to foster us holds a great deal from us - perhaps for our benefit. The more one studies them scientfically, the more one would understand how...chaotic everything is.”

We stayed silent. 

“As to what creates them...in my studies, I’ve deciphered that the initial awakening comes about once one reaches a mental breaking point - the ultimate fight-or-flight decision, when the demons of one’s mind have finally reached the gate. That’s when the Persona decides to make it’s appearance.”

“Makes sense…” I murmured.

“The situations these individuals find themselves in varies, but they all seem connected to a similar event of the grand cosmic sea of the collective unconscious. Each group, bound by fate, and bound by a single foe. That’s...where the similarities end.”

Lilli groaned. “So it’s just a bunch of bullshit?”

Carter let out a grand laugh. “Now you’re starting to get it, my dear!”

She sunk into her seat. 

“You’re not gonna, like...study us, are you? Pick us open?”

“No, I’ve tried that, no conclusive results…”

We went silent.

“I’m kidding! Don’t worry. In truth, it wouldn’t result of anything, regardless - very little biological indication. I just wish to help, to provide assistance, make a difference where I can and make up for the times I haven’t…”

“So…”

Carter nodded solemnly. “I’m sure you’ve all had a taste for the supernatural as of now, so this may not come as a suprise. When I was a young lad at my uncles farm, there was an...incident. In that time, I’ve developed a gift of prophecy, divination, seeing the unseen...Saturn, my Persona, quite helps in this regard. I’m afraid I’m a bit past my prime as of now, in both combat and my perception of the world, but I would wish to help where it counts.”

“So you could tell us about...like...what’s going to happen?”

“I can tell you the possibilities - that’s not what I want, nor is it my withholding of information…” Carter walked to the painting and observed it for a second. “The universe is chaotic. I can’t help it much.”

Lilli rubbed her head at the response to her question. “Fine, fine, alright...man. I don’t...get this. At all.”

“I hope I haven’t turned you off to this cooperation,” Carter adjusted his suspenders. “This is only in my best intention, I assure you.”

“Yeah, no, I get it?”

“Julieanne?”

I stayed silent throughout the entire conversation. I just...I didn’t even really know what was real anymore. I didn’t know that for a few weeks. This gave me hope, but cemented my fears. 

“I think we’d...we really need all the help we can get.”

Raul nodded. “I want to know how to use these things as good as I can.”

Carter smiled at our agreement. “Wonderful. Once you’ve done your business in that otherworld - I understand you’re on a bit of a time limit - I’ll open up as much as I can to your prying eyes. Any question you may have, I shall answer. Any obligation I can fufill, I will.”

We took turns shaking his hand. I looked him in the eyes for a split second - dark grey, but almost completely faded.

The world drained of color in a heartbeat, before filling with vibrant purples and the deepest blacks. I heart the voice again. 

Ｉ ａｍ Ｔｈｏｕ， ａｎｄ Ｔｈｏｕ ａｒｔ Ｉ

Ｔｈｏｕ ｈａｓ ｃｒｅａｔｅｄ ａ ｎｅｗ ｂｏｎｄ， ａ ｓｉｇｎ ｏｆ ｐｅａｃｅｆｕｌ ｑｕｉｅｔ ｉｎ ｔｈｉｓ ｒｅｓｔｌｅｓｓ ｗｏｒｌｄ．．．

Ｔｈｒｏｕｇｈ ｔｈｅ ｐｏｗｅｒ ｏｆ ｔｈｅ

Ｍｏｏｎ Ａｒｃａｎａ， ｔｈｏｕ ａｒｔ ｏｎｅ ｓｔｅｐ ｃｌｏｓｅｒ ｔｏ ｅｎｄｉｎｇ ｔｈｅ ｎｉｇｈｔｍａｒｅ．

He saw the flares in my eyes. He smiled knowingly.

“Now, off with you. Prepare for the coming days. Work as hard as you can. Your friend demands it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY GUYS SORRY THIS IS LATE BUT SOMETHING [IMPORTANT](https://imgur.com/a/yU2km) HAPPENED
> 
> [DISCORD SERVER AND CAT NEWS](https://discord.gg/sB7btgn)


	27. Far More Comfortable Alone

"Look, after all that bullshit, I just want to murder."   
I stared at Lilli, hoping she'd justify her homicidal ideations.    
"Murder, like, monsters. Monsters, not..."   
The locker room went dead silent.   
"Fuck it, whatever," she cupped her hands and yelled. "Y'all know what I said! Fuck off!"

I bent forwards and scooted towards her, trying to make myself even more unnoticeable. “Should we go in today, then?”

She leaned back and nodded. “Yeah, sure. I’ll message Raul, I guess.”

 

I noticed the name “Shoshana” being mentioned more and more as I went on my day - the whispers about a dead kid becoming softer and softer. I was contemplating moving my lunch bathroom when I passed by a guy in a trenchcoat (in August?) and a nebbish-looking kid in completely opaque glasses talking about the events. Both were remarking that “nobody seemed to know or care” about her. I felt a bit awkward, since...I probably knew more about Max than I should. I just kept walking.

 

I got to English and sat down quietly. We haven’t done much the past few days except for go over regular rules of writing and novels and such. Kind of boring.

Mr. B was fiddling with the projector and the screen, which was weird - he usually did his lectures with the chalkboard. I patiently waited for him to ring the bell for class to start.

“So, we’ll be talking about current events today. You all know about the, uh, tragedy recently?”

A couple people nodded.

“So, first off, tomorrow the principal will be making an announcement about Shoshana Cohen - she’s a junior that recently hit a bout of, uh...well, she’s in the hospital as of now, and she’s very sick. So, the student council put together a donation jar and a card that you can sign in the lobby.”

I heard a girl murmur something behind me. “Donation? Isn’t she rich?”

“Her family has the biggest house on Barnaby.”

“Guys! Settle down! Let’s not turn this into some kinda argument!” Mr. B put his hands up. “Look, your friend’s going through something serious. It’s not something to take lightly.”

I felt the general air of ‘I don’t even know who we’re talking about’ hang in the classroom.

“Also, on the topic of news, I’m sure you all know by now,” he said, bending down to the computer, typing something. “A while back, a young kid - Tommy Berchart, was found dead in the forest off Main Street. I just got a news alert on my phone - do you all use those? They’re handy.”

There was a soft wave of agreement amongst the students.

“Alright, so the good news is, the killer came forward. The heartbreaking news - it was a classmate of the child. So...another elementary schooler.”

Several students gasped. I sat upright. 

“They haven’t released his name yet, but the police chief just did a press conference about it...uh, should’ve just ended, but the news probably has it on their website.”

“An eight year old busted that kid’s head open?”

“That’s insane!”

“Aren’t they going to arrest him?”

“They already have him in custody,” Mr. B. affirmed. “The kid came forward, anyway. I’m surprised it took him this long to confess,” he pushed a button on a remote attached to the computer, and the news website popped up on the projector. He pressed play. “It’s really long, so I’ll only play the first five minutes or so. But, when you get home, feel free to write down your thoughts on the whole thing - I’ll give you extra credit.”

Mr. B. pressed play on the video. It showed the outside of the Lydon police station - a glass-fronted building with a front entryway lined with trees. I had seen it once or twice, but I never noticed it was actually the station. A young-looking, clean cut Hispanic man in a police officer’s uniform was at a podium, looking somber and tired. A plaque on the front of the podium said ‘Lt. Torres.’

“Good afternoon, everyone…” he started, before sighing heavily. “If you’ll excuse me, this isn’t something that I really want to drag on, so I want to get straight to facts. I’ll answer a few questions afterwards, and then I’ll hand it off to another member of the police.

“About two weeks ago - August 2nd - a body was found in the Herman Conroy park. It belonged to 7-year old Thomas Berchart, a student at Liberty Elementary. Our forensics indicated the cause of death was bludgeoning to the head, and the implement of murder - a tree branch - was found less than ten feet away of the body. We also found Thomas’ school bag and lunch in the same vicinity.” Torres announced into the crowd. He was reading from a piece of paper.

“Today, at about 9 in the morning, someone came forward and confessed to the crime - and, to protect all identities, I will not divulge their name, address - really, anything that can be used to find them. They are currently being processed by Lydon’s police department. We are diverting all we can to make sure we have the right guy.”

Torres sighed. “I’ve been working for this department for ten years, and this is the hardest case I’ve had to work on. All of our men and women are completely drained, and because this is the last few days of summer, several small business owners have estimated the town has lost about 20% of their weekly income just by this case alone. I’ll speak on behalf of the city of Lydon and ask that, when reporting on this subject, you all treat this with respect and discretion. I’ll be honest, the suspect is a minor. Very young. We don’t need stress from the family of either the suspect or the victim.”

The lieutenant quietly folded his paper. “I’ll just answer a few questions before I return. Yes?”

The reporter he had pointed to said something barely inaudible. 

“We’re being honest as we can - this is a heinous crime. It’s murder. We’re not sure if we’ll try the suspect as an adult, however - we will have to consult with legal departments on both sides.”

“I’m Lydia Cho from the Sunday Standard - will you release the name of the suspect in any due time?”

Torres shook his head. “Not until everything’s processed. This has been a problem for police across the country - we try not to reveal the names of suspects in crimes such as these to protect the families of those involved. The last thing we need is to have these parents deal with abuse, bullying, consequences at work or school - we need people to act with consideration here. This is a very tough case for a lot of reasons, and I don’t want it to get worse for anyone.”

Camera bulbs started flashing. “I’ll have to return to the department for the time being. I’ll have officer Regen take over from here. Have a good evening.” 

Torres walked off the podium, and a white dude with black hair took his place. Mr. B. stopped the video.

 

“Jesus, a kid…” 

The three of us were sitting on the patio, the same place as yesterday. He was scrolling through his phone, reading news articles. I watched from older his elbow - they all had the same information - or, rather, lack of it. None of them mentioned anything about the suspect. I couldn’t argue their reasons.

Lilli leaned towards me, sitting on the table . “Man, this’s been a hell of a month so far…”

I groaned something in response.

“Raul, you ready to head out soon?” Lilli began tapping her foot on the bench impatiently. “I wanna get this edge off.”

“Yeah, I guess this is good stress relief,” Raul stretched his back and leaned against the table. “Not that the situation itself isn’t especially stress-free. I made sure to bring my bag today.”

“Yeah, and I brought…” Lilli began to smirk, but her entire face rapidly deflated. “I was gonna bring the other airsoft gun, but...dammit!”

“Did you forget?”

She punched the side of her head with her wrist. I jumped. “Dammit!”

“Hey, that’s not gonna help.”

“Uhm…” I stood up fully, wiping some of the concrete dust off my skirt. I...can’t believe I wore a skirt to monster-killing-club today. Moron. “Is there a gun store in town? L-like, an airsoft gun store, not a real one…”

“There...I think there is, yeah.” Lilli rubbed the side of her head where she punched herself. “Uh...on the, in that super fucking preppy plaza.”

“Yeah, it’s right next to Top Fun, right?”

Lilli nodded.

Raul turned to me. “You’re a gun enthusiast, right? Do you think other pellet guns would work?”

I shrugged. “Worth a shot, right?”

He stood up, dug out his wallet, pulled out a $20. “Think you can get me something with this? I trust your judgement on guns more than I trust mine.”

I cautiously took it. “M-maybe not. They can get pretty expensive…”

He nodded. “I’ll break my piggy bank and get it to you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, same here,” Lilli jumped off of the table. “Get me a big one. With a big clip.”

I visibly cringed. “It’s a magazine.”

“What? No, I want a gun.”

I gave up. “Let’s just go.”

 

We pulled up to the theater, still ominous as all hell. I was the first to get out - Raul had to pull out his bad, and Lilli was listening to music in the front seat - I was guessing she was waiting for her song to finish.

When I stepped out, I noticed the blue butterfly from before on the ticket window. It was the same one that had disintegrated on...the first day I found this place.

I looked behind me. The two of them were still working on whatever they were working on. Neither of them had seen it.

I walked forward, hand outstretched towards the butterfly. It was emanating an aura of...calmness. Softness. As I got closer, the world around me became...bright. Blue lights danced in my vision, the small particles of the air seemed to slow until they froze completely.

The air grew cold and still, and deep, [blue-colored fog](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfaKWAs3ekw) began rolling across the ground. A flock of seagulls in the sky had frozen mid-flight. A black car that was turning the cover stopped, dirt from it’s tires hanging in the air. 

My blood went still. The butterfly was gone.

“Hello?”

A sudden burst of light came from the corner of the street - bright enough that I had to cover my eyes completely. A muscular figure came from the fog, somewhat familiar and yet still alien.

I slowly approached the light and the shadow, hand on the pistol tucked into my skirt’s elastic.

“Boris?”

He nodded. He was just as I remembered him, and I...didn’t know how to feel about that.

“What’s going on? D-did you…” 

Boris gestured to a door by his side. “Master is expecting you. Do not wait.”

“Master?”

Boris opened the door and gestured me inside.

 

I was in the Velvet Room. I don’t know why I expected different. The moment I stepped through the door, I was transported into a black void with only the couch visible. I was already in the patient scrubs.

I didn’t know what to do, really. I waited for a second, relaxing in the wave of peace that the Velvet Room usually brought. After a bit of deep breathing, I sat back down on the couch, reclined a bit, then waited.

The lights clicked on again - spotlights that revealed the entire room. Igor was sitting in his cushioney purple chair, as usual - though, it has been a while since we’ve seen each other. Not that I anticipated any other meetings.

“Welcome again, my dear, to the Velvet Room…” he dryly chuckled from his chair, face still unmoving, disturbingly still. “I’ve seen you’ve made some great strides towards your goals.”

I shrugged. “I...I guess. I just want to help my friend.”

“A noble goal, indeed. However, I must warn you - your journey will not end here,” he flexed his knuckles before reclining back into his chair, chin resting on his hand. “A year to yourself, surrounded by the profane and alien...several paths in front of you, all correct...my, my. This shall be an interesting year, indeed.”

I stayed silent and nodded, waiting for him to finish up. 

“I must say, I’m very proud of your progress, my dear. Perhaps it’s time to give you my first incentive.”

He reached inside his suit’s jacket and retrieved two cards - both with purple and gold backs. He handed them to me - well, he really just stuck out his hand, and the cards floated over the table in the middle, into my lap.

I picked them up cautiously. The backs, like I had noticed, were purple with gold, geometric engravings. The faces, however, were shimmering black, like portals to an infinite, dark sea. Both of them had some sort of...sigil on them, though it looked like they were floating a million miles away inside the cards. One was silver and bright, looking like two twisting snakes, the other looked like a rapidly pulsing, vibrating star. 

“Sadly, not all those blessed with the Fool have the capability of the Wild Card - in due time, perhaps,” Igor said, waving his hand dismissively - like I knew what he was talking about in the first place. “That doesn’t mean your Persona isn’t capable of adaptation. Use these as you see fit - they shall come in helpful through your trials and triumphs.”

I stared into the cards for a second more. I heard Boris pull the cord on the lights, and everything went dark again.

I was soons staring at my own hands in the summer sun, right outside the theater.

“Ready?”

“Huh?” I whipped my head towards the source of the voice - Raul, hoisting the bag over his shoulder. “Uh...yeah. Yeah, let’s go.”

 

The theater was still light inside, like last time, but the general feeling of not-quite-real-life-ness still filled the entire space. Raul put down his bag on the couch, and Lilli took some time to lace up her boots, adjusting a knife that she had tucked in there.

“Is that…” Raul pointed to the BB gun in my skirt.

“Not really.”

“Why don’t you put it in your hoodie pocket?”

I looked down and saw that, in fact, I was wearing a hoodie. Dumbass.

“Yo, Raul, did you bring that hook...thing?” Lilli took an energy drink that we had left a few days ago and pointed it at him. “You just gonna do Don Juan?”

“Don  _ Pedro _ , and...no. I don’t think so, anyway. Man, though, that felt awesome.”

“You have a weapon?” I asked.

He nodded, reached into the bag, and pulled out a sheathed machete. “Thank God for Gabe’s sword nerd phase.”

“Shit! Is that real?”

He pulled it out of the sheath, flexing it in his hand. The blade shimmered in the light, but it looked remarkably cheap. “About as real as $50 will get you.”

“We all ready?”

I nodded. Raul sheathed ths machete with a bit of trouble. We all walked towards the elevator, took a collective breath, and descended.

 

Samuel was waiting. Of course he was. The moment he saw the elevator open, he bounded up from his solitary position on the stage.

“Friends!” he exclaimed, putting his hands up in a weird kind of proclamation. “Hello again! I’m glad you’ve returned so soon!”

“Soon?” Raul adjusted the sheath on his belt before snapping his head forward, I guess just to recognize Sam. “Uh, yeah, I guess you’re right.”

The pink-and-gold door was still in the center of the theater, closed since we had left this weekend. We walked towards the stage.

“Anything happen with that recently?” Raul asked, pointing to the door.

Samuel shook his head. “Are we venturing further forward into the world today?”

“Yep.” Lilli curtly said. 

“Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask…” Raul turned towards Samuel, relaxing his look somewhat - I guess trying to counter the fact that he was quite obviously handling a large machete. “Do you have a weapon? Or, like...this is kind of dangerous stuff, right? You feel afraid at all?”

Samuel laughed. “It’s all fine by me! The only times I truly feel afraid are when you three call me Samuel, as I truly have no idea what caused me to claim it as my own, nor do I know where it came from or any significance it may have! It’s horrifying for me!”

We stood in stunned silence.

“Holy shit, dude.”

Raul awkwardly glanced at the two of us. “So...you good?”

“Yes!” His tone didn’t change from his usual peppiness. It...didn’t mesh with me well. “Now, are we ready to depart? I can’t wait!”

 

The [mansion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8RFcWCWkcI) was...it wasn’t the same. There was still the distorted feeling, the not-quite reality, the distant darkness that obscured the corners of the foyer and however high the ceiling was. But...something felt different, like the air was heavier and hard to breath. There was a feeling of pressure on my body on all sides, and there was a slight resistance whenever I tried to move. It felt like something else in the room had changed, too, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“Starting to feel like…” Lilli stretched her nech as she explored the space. “Dunno. Feels more tense.”

“Maybe it’s Max’s mind giving up? I mean...we are in their mind, right?” Raul suggested. 

Lilli and I exchanged glances. 

“I don’t really...know? I guess…” I tried to formulate an answer. “Yeah...maybe it’s starting to go.”

“We better move, than.”

The four of us walked to the painting in the center, and it finally hit me what was so off about the foyer. The painting had shifted significantly - the parents on either side of Max were much more pallid and thin, almost completely white. Their faces were clouded over with white, almost like they had growths of skin that covered their eyes and mouths. 

Then I saw their arms. Instead of being crossed over their bodies plaintively, they each had a hand on Max’s shoulders, with their other hand wrapped around their face. Long claws dug into Max’s eyes and mouth, turning their expression into a grotesque smile. They were bleeding bright red.

“Jesus.”

Raul stayed silent. He studied the painting before taking a picture with that heavy-duty camera. It had managed to turn on and operate, unlike our phones, which was...weird. I guess every rule had exceptions.

“Quite a remarkable difference.” Sam mused.

“You can say th-” I began, but I paused once I remembered how literal minded Sam could be. “Do y’all remember how many we had left?”

Raul examined the picture on his camera“How many what?”

“Suitors? Monsters? Whatever.”

Lilli quickly counted on her fingers. “Two.”

“Samuel, how many more...things do you sense?”

Sam rubbed his temples and the skin around his mask before nodding. “It’s a bit...mixed in this particular area, but I can sense two distinct signatures.”

“Mixed?”

He turned to Raul and nodded. For the first time, I saw his mask’s permanent smile as sincere. “In this position, it feels cloudy. I’m unsure how to describe it - like several voices screaming at once.”

I glanced at Raul as he cracked his neck, then looked upwards at the monsterous painting.

“Where else should we go? Think the left wing’s about done, right?” Lilli looked around the room. “Too many fuckin’ doors.”

“I think the banquet hall’s, like...through the doors on the side of the stairs?” Raul said, walking down.

“Dude, I don’t think this place is exactly Max’s house.”

Raul shrugged. “It’s a start, right?”

“Max’s house has a banquet hall?!” I exclaimed.

“Dining room, but they hold dinners and stuff there,” Raul explained. “Birthdays, anniversaries, they usually hold holiday parties for friends.”

“Huh…” I thought for a second. That seems excessive, but, I mean, I’d love a house big enough to have everyone in it.

We walked down the stairs, rounded the corner, past the basement elevator, and stopped in front of a door that looked like all the others. Raul briefly traced what I could guess was the map of Max’s actual house in the air, nodded to himself, then entered.

The inside of the room began leaking cold mist the moment the door was opened. Raul took a small pocket flashlight out, turned it on, and peaked inside.

“Good thinking.” Lilli complimented. She retrieved the lighter she had from last time, flicked it open, and followed Raul. 

“So I just have to go in blind?”

Lilli shrugged. “Looks like it.”

I groaned and stayed as close to her as possible. 

The room was...a kitchen? I think. It had stainless metal floors, slick and shiny, though as we explored we kept finding big scuff marks on the ground. There were clean counters and large refrigerators, unused sinks, lines of wicked knives and sharp forks…

“Careful, friends…” Samuel warned as we inched close. “There is...something here…”

The moment he announced that, there was the noise of a refrigerator opening. There was a small light only about 10 feet away from us, blocked by the silhouette of a weird...pile thing…

“Is that…” Raul whispered. He took another picture as he stepped backwards. I put my hand on the gun inside my pocket, making sure the safety was on.

The kitchen was soon drowned with the sounds of something chewing, spitting, shoving food down whatever mouths there were. Small flecks of organic matter were being spread around the pile in the center. Gnashing teeth. Groaning hunger.

“The...fuck…”

I fully drew the pistol and aimed at the...thing…”

“How do you wanna handle this?” Raul asked. “Should I just grab it with my Persona? Like…”

“Conserve the energy…” I said. 

The pile stopped eating. It twisted around, still sitting. 

“Uh oh.”

I brought the pistol up from my hip, aimed quickly with the (kinda crap) sights, and pulled the trigger. The bullet flew right into the pile’s face, and it...said nothing. 

Fluorescent lights above us began humming, lighting up the entire kitchen. The entire front half of the room was a mess, full of rotting meat, fresh meat, knives thrown against walls, destroyed refrigerators, and what I knew what blood. 

Then I saw the pile.

It was some kind of grotesque stuffed animal - a large, pear-shaped beast, with brown fabric skin and giant, black, blank eyes. The more I examined it, though, it looked...disturbingly organic. The claws on it’s tear-shaped arms and legs looked like actual protusions of bone, it’s skin rolled and bulged with fat, and it’s mouth was perpetually hung open, with a lolling, wet-looking tongue and dripping drool. 

It’s gazed at us with dead eyes, the bullet hole in it’s forehead dripping with black blood. We backstepped a bit.

The bear slowly picked itself up, with lazy, slow movements, dripping drool and blood as it walked towards us.

“Hey! Just, keep eating! We won’t harm you!” Raul said, I guess trying to establish diplomacy like the last two.

[The bear didn’t listen.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDZwBiBgWQg) It groaned, limped forward, and then began to charge.

“Shit!” Raul struggled with his machete before he managed to pull it out. Lilli did the same, taking the knife out of her boot, twirling it in her hands.

I aimed again - though the pressure of having a giant bear come at me threw off my aim as much as it could. I squeezed the trigger five times, each landing a bit off the mark - only one hit the bear, and it only grazed. Each bullet hit a pile of meat, resulting it in bursting in a shower of red blood like a balloon.

The bear finished it’s charge only to be met by Lilli’s boot in it’s gut. The sudden force made it tumble backwards like a turtle, shaking on the floor trying to get up. Lilli walked forward and aimed her knife at the bear’s head, but it swiped her off it’s stomach, throwing her off balance and making her fall back-first into a metal counter.

She cursed and grabbed behind her, reaching for one of the metal chef’s knives. By the time she grabbed it, the bear had stood up and was almost upon her.

I fired a distraction shot as Raul stepped forward, swiping at the beast with his machete, creating a long wound in his back, bleeding profusely. The bear turned his head towards Raul, and prepared to fight back in, apparently, the only way it knew how - size advantage. It reared back and was seconds before tackling Raul with it’s weight.

I clenched my fist, letting it get covered in white fire, and let Puck manifest out of me. The fairy lunged forward while levitating and kicked the beast in the forehead, right where the first bullet wound was. The bear, once again, toppled back onto the floor. 

Raul turned towards me and gave a thumbs up before slicing at the bear’s arm with his machete. It dug deep into the flesh, causing black to seep out. Lilli took the knives in her hand - one a bowie knife, the other a nightmare-created chef’s blade, and dug them into the bear’s eye sockets. Blood poured out. 

It still swiped her off, more violently than before. She fell to the ground, her head colliding with the counter’s overhanging metal table. It reached up, I guess looking for Raul or Puck. I could’ve killed it right there, but I don’t think there wasn’t any plant life...or, at least, not enough to create a giant, wooden spike.

I looked around for something to kill it, something big. My eyes landed on one of the many refrigerators lining the room - could Puck use, like, vegetables and stuff? Dammit. Only one way to find out.

“Keep it occupied!” I commanded to Raul. He nodded before slicing the beast’s stomach with his machete in a single, strong strike, then stepping back before it could retaliate. I saw him trying to concentrate, white fire enveloping his hand. 

I raced towards the closest refrigerator, which was, of course, right next to the bear, briefly contemplated tossing it onto the bear’s still body before realizing it was bolted to the ground, and threw it open. Inside was just...piles and piles of raw, sickenly shiny and swelled meat, as bulbous and thick as balloons. Dammit! Why can’t Max be vegan?

I saw a shadow hang over my body.

“Julie! Wat-”

The bear swiped at me, and I flew across the floor on my face. I landed on my nose, and saw red leak onto the floor. 

I took a moment to regain my composure before looking up and behind me. The bear had sat in front of the fridge and was just...eating. He didn’t care - or really notice - any of us. It was just...chowing down.

This was...easy. 

I wiped the blood from my nose with my sleeve and grabbed the pistol, as it had landed on the floor a few feet in front of me. I aimed and fired again, creating three holes in the side of its face. The bear’s skin was almost completely stained black now, no thanks to the knives impaled in it’s eyes, or the several wounds. As it ate, red blood began spewing from the slice in its stomach, creating a sickining mixture on the ground.

I glanced at Lilli before standing up - she was slowly coming to her senses. She’s usually tough, right? But she probably just got her head thrown at the corner at just the wrong angle…

Raul’s Persona, Don Pedro, finally came forward, thrusting his sword through the bear as it ate and ate. Once it was plunged in, he twisted it until sparks came flying out, and blue electricity began coursing through the bear’s body. It...didn’t care though. It just kept eating.

“C’mon, man! You’re taking all the fun out of it!”

The bear took a hunk of red meat, dropped it into its wide maw, and sat for a second. The fridge was picked clean. It struggled to stand up again, then, with a single, albeit struggling motion, picked up the fridge and threw it in my general direction. The car sized hunk of metal threw threw the air, almost landing right on my head until Puck kicked it out of the way like a soccer player, landing on top of one of the counters and crushing it. Water began flowing from a burst pipe.

“Raul! Careful with that electricity!”

Don Pedro de-amplified his sword and pulled it out of the beast, creating a single, thin hole on either sides of it’s belly. 

“What now?”

“Kill it!” 

“I-I mean, yeah!” 

Raul lunged forward with his machete again, this time slicing up at the bear’s neck, with Don Pedro doing the same from the other side. Both swords sunk deep into the beast’s skin, but none really seemed to phase it. It swung it’s arms side to side, in an attempt to get Raul away, but he dodged expertly under the arms and sliced at the bear’s neck again. The bear’s skin was completely black, shimmering with the weird blood in the cold, fluorescent white.

I got an idea.

I touched Puck’s plastic-like skin and communicated the plan to him, and inside my heart I could hear him cackle. He flew back to another refrigerator, opened it, and waited for the bear to catch wind. It did, and made the slow, jiggling walk to the pile of meat.

I then realized I had to communicate what the plan was to Raul.

Oh, Christ, I hoped this would work.

Me and Puck jumpd over the fridge that the bear just threw, and Puck kicked the water pipe until it was aimed at the bear, spraying it with a constant stream of cold water. Raul and Don Pedro watched me with curiosity before Don Pedro gave an exaggerated thumbs-up.

I aimed the pistol again, using the refrigerator to rest my hands, and shot bullets along the bear’s spine. I was suprised at how...easy I was finding it to use a gun like this. 

As I expected, water began spurting from the bear’s wounds, along with the red blood and black blood. Don Pedro blinked to behind the bear, began charging his rapier with electricity, and shoved it into the beast’s back. 

The bear began twitching as it ate, electricity dancing across the multiple wounds and the jet of water from the pipe. I ducked behind the refridgerator with Puck and waited for the inevitable.

I heard the gruesome sound of exploding meat, and red, black, and clear liquids stained almost everything around where the bear once stood. Nothing remained.

“Holy shit.” Lilli meekly said.

Samuel clapped. “You didn’t even need my help!”

I mentally high-fived Puck and climbed over the fridge. “That was...that went okay, I think?”

“Yeah, more than okay!” Raul smiled and thrust his machete into the air in triumph. “For once, we weren’t on the cusp of death!”

Lilli weakly raised her hand.

“Oh shit.”

The three of us jumped to her side. She looked...relatively fine, but when Raul gently guided her head over to him so he could examine it, we both saw a giant, bloody gash across her neck.

“Oh. Oh shit. That’s...not good. How do you feel?”

“I’m fine.”

“Oh, no, no you’re not. That’s concussion-worthy.” He poked the skin around the wound, and she painfully cringed. 

“Alright, we need to get back.”

“Funny that...ah, shit. You’re finally admitting it.”

I faintly remembered the Velvet Room visit that occured right before this, and I saw the strange green sigil once again - the one that resembled intertwining snakes.

“Uh…”

“What’s up?”

Raul turned towards me, concern in his eyes. I walked back, let Puck stand as close as he could to Lilli, and tried to...do something…

Puck outstretched his hand, and I felt a strange, tingling sensation in my palm. A small wreath of vines enveloped his hand and arm, one that grew glowing golden leaves. He gently waved his arm, and the vines dissapated into sparks of light, making the leaves fall onto Lillli’s wound. Once they were right above her skin, they dissolved into light.

The wound on Lilli’s neck...it looked like it reversed itself. The skin grew back over the open gash, and the gash itself grew back until it was flush with the rest of her spine. The blood that was oozing down her skin just kind of...sucked itself back into her body.

“What...the fuck?” Raul gasped. “You can do that?”

“Huh? What happened?” Lilli grabbed where the wound used to be and examined her hand, I guess expecting to see blood. “What…”

“I didn’t know I could do that!” I threw up my hands. “I mean...look, it’s too much to explain, but…”

“You positively sealed her up!” Samuel poked the skin where the wound used to be, until Lilli swiped him away.

“How’d you do that?”

“How are we doing  _ anything _ ?” I paced around. “I know! It’s cool! But…”

“What? I’m not accusing you of - “ Raul began, before he just kind of gave up. “Did you...just know how to do it now?”

Puck nodded.

“Alright. Don’t be afraid to keep doing it then, dude.”

I helped Lilli up, and after a quick breather, we returned to the foyer. 

 

The oppressive feeling still hung over the room, but it felt magnified in strength. We climbed up the stairs and stopped dead in our tracks.

The mother and father figures on either side of Max in the painting had completed their transformation. Their skin was as white as plaster, skin emancipated to the point of being skeletons. They both had deep holes in their faces that resembled fleshy smiles and simple dot eyes.

It paled in comparison to Max. Their parent’s claws had completely clawed open their face, their mouth stretched open wide enough that the sides of their mouths had torn open, and their eyes were empty and black. Inside their mouth was a black void. I couldn’t stand to look at it.

“Jesus...fucking…”

Raul took another picture, but mostly just kind of...stared and observed it.

“How does...can you three do that?”

We turned to Samuel. 

He shut up.

After averting my eyes long enough, I tried to stomach a glance at the painting. Inside the mouth of Max’s...corpse...was just...nothing. Not like the painting was black - like there was a  _ literal _ void inside of it. No brushstrokes - just a black hole.

Lilli noticed it too. She took her still-stained bowie knife and poked around the corpse’s mouth. 

The painting...screamed. Almost. It just kind of made a screeching noise that  _ certainly _ wasn’t like any human, and the painting’s parchment recoiled away into the frame like it was being torn away.

I stopped averting my eyes with my hand and looked at the...void. It was just a deep blackness - nothing else.

“We supposed to in there?” Lilli pointed at the hole.

“What do you mean?”

Lilli shrugged, put a boot on the fame, and climbed through the hole. Then, nothing. No scream, no saying ‘it’s fine!’. Just...nothing.

“Oh, goddammit. Julie, c’mon.”

“I...alright.” I flicked the pistol’s safety on, let Raul get a footing on the painting’s frame, and the two of us walked through together. 

 

The moment I stepped through, I felt like I had gotten hit by a truck or a bus. I was laying flat on a carpeted floor, and even though I had  _ just _ stepped through the hole, it was like I had been falling for...months. Years. My entire body hurt.

I looked around. The room was lit well enough, for some reason - no darkness, no fog. It looked like a green room for a late night talk show, or, like, a doctor’s waiting room. Couches lined the walls, mini fridges on every corner, paintings of sunsets and sailboats crammed together…

I got up as best I could.

“Oh, thank God.”

“What?”

I looked around until I saw Lilli. 

Oh, Christ, did I see Lilli. 

For some reason, she was dressed in one of those Chinese dresses, slick black with a gold flower design on the front, long stockings and high heels. It looked tight to the point of being uncomfortable.

“Oh my God! How’d you-”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I know.”

Raul rubbed his head. “Dammit! Why…oh.  _ Hello _ .”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake! Why don’t you guys look down?”

I did so and regretted it.

I had been dressed in some kind of...red satin dress. Well,  _ dress _ felt like kind of a charitable word. It was, like, two pieces of fabric sewn together at the sides, and it barely came down until right above my upper leg. Then there was the neckline! It was down to almost my belly button! I poked at the exposed skin - which, for some reason, was a few shades lighter than normal. Nobody needed to see this! My ribs were more prominent than my breasts!

Raul looked down at his own ensemble - a pair of tight pants, a fluffy white shirt that was opened up to reveal his chest, and a swinging golden pendant. He sighed, threw off the medalion, and looked at us. “Well, this sucks.”

“Oh, you’re one to fucking talk!”

I tried to take each side of the ‘cleavage’ window and pull them closer, but it just made everything tighter! Any more and it’d probably spit everything wide open. Fuck, fuck, fuck…

“Why is this the most normal part?”

Lilli propped one of her legs on top of the chairs and started unlacing her high heels. “Fucking racist goddamn...shit, I hate this nightmare bullshit.”

“Don’t you own one of those?”

“Yeah, but I wear it when I  _ want _ \- and it’s not as tight as this! Fuck…”

I took a pillow off the couch, took the cover off, and tried to see if it’d fit over my body, but I only managed to cover my head. Maybe I could use the gun to shoot some holes in it?

“Hey, where’s Sam?”

Lilli tossed both high heels at the wall. “He came with you two, right?”

The sound of gross, wet sobbing filled the room. We turned and looked at the corner of the room, underneath a chair. Samuel was curled up underneath, obscuring his face.

His golden mask was laying in a black puddle beside him.

“Samuel?” Raul cautiously approached.

“DON’T LOOK AT ME”

We were all taken aback. I hid behind the pillow. 

“Mask...where’s...where’s the mask…” He held his hand over his face as he searched the floor. His entire head was covered in slick black. 

Raul cautiously kicked the golden mask across the floor. Samuel grabbed it with both hands and put in on in a frenzied panic. There was a...clicking sound...and it just kind of plugged back in.

“Oh! Hello, friends!”

Lilli cringed, still in the process of pulling off a stocking. “You...okay?”

“Fit as can be!”

Raul gave a thumbs up.

“So, how do we get out of here?” I looked around the room, holding the pillowcase in front of my torso. I took a quick moment to shove it under my dress, covering the strip of exposed flesh and using the tightness to my advantage, then took Lilli’s advice and threw off the damn-near-foot-long stilettos that someone had decided to put me in. 

Lilli looked around with me until she saw a door that we had both apparently missed. She ushered in the other two, and we stepped through to a...fairly boring hallway. It was...like the backstage of a T.V. set more than anything. 

The only other person in the hallway was a weird...person? I think. It was a life-sized doll, with bronzed plastic skin, an open purple shirt, blonde plastic hair, and a permanent smile. As we passed by it turned to us and waved it’s whole arm - I guess because it didn’t have much in the way of joints?

Raul returned the wave. “Hello?”

“Hi there, pals!” It’s mouth didn’t move while it talked - nor did it move. It just kind of stood there against the wall.

“Hey, uh, you another suitor?”

“Why, yes I am! Are you also participating in - “

Raul unsheathed his machete and lopped the doll’s head clean off, spraying black across the wall.

Lilli looked at Raul, shocked. “Jesus!”

“Oh, come on! We’re probably the only ones left by now.”

I flicked some blood off my shoulder. “Way too gruesome, if you ask me.”

“You helped me explode a bear!”

Lilli groaned. “C’mon, the ends’ probably not too far…” she said, before looking down at her dress. “Hope it is, anyway.”

We walked the empty hallway until we reached a dead end - two double doors, red wood, with the same golden heart design as the one we used to get into the mansion world.

I shrugged. “Must be the end.”

I pushed them open and walked into the black beyond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter ends at a weird place, but I didn't want to get the tone completely screwed up. Believe me, it's...something.
> 
> [Discord Server and Cat Pictures](https://discord.gg/wXWrqYb). Thanks to ComradeQ for sending me the battle theme!


	28. Don't Hurt The Ones You Love

The four of us entered the room with a fair amount of anxiety - half because we were reaching the end,  I guess,  and half because we were dressed in...kinda disarming outfits.

The room itself ended us disarming us more than anything else, though.

It was...gaudy as sin. A white-and-steel stage, covered in gold decorations and bright lights. Three podiums stood before us, each with a single silver button, glowing with a strange light. Beyond the stage was rows and rows of stadium chairs, stretching up and far into the infinite distance. In the center was a circular pedestal, with a single microphone. It looked like the set of a singing competition, or some kind of prime-time talent show...gaudy, bright, covered in screens and cameras...no hosts, though.

When we looked up, though, we saw something that broke the illusion - a giant, golden box, without any holes, bars, or anything that would show whatever it’s purpose was. It was bound to the ceiling with heavy silver chains, some draping down in long, shining strands.

“This this is it?” Lilli looked around, still holding her knife. “Yo, Sam, you got something?”

“I…” He concentrated for a few seconds, holding his head in his hands and shaking furiously. “No, no, I sense several...a very large presence...ten thousand faces, all sceaming...It’s here! It must be here!”

Raul walked up to one of the podiums. He pressed the large button in the center, waited for something to happen, then pressed it again.

“Hello?”

The lights shut out immediately. I held the pistol tighter, feeling around for some kind of body to hide behind. I felt skin, inched closer to it, and tried to calm down.

**Is this all that’s left?**

**We were expecting more, weren’t we?**

**What could’ve happened to them?**

**Aw, did someone get jealous?**

**No use arguing over that now, is there? We’re at the final moments of the party!**

**Right you are, darling!**

**Now, who loves our darling daughter the most, do you think?**

**Let’s find out!**

Two spotlights whirled around the room as a drumroll played from nowhere, shining over empty seats, black television screens, the podiums, before stopping on two shadowing figures in the center.

It was the two figures from the painting - one in a skin-tight tuxedo, the other in a loose dress. Both were pale and freakishly tall, with limbs that couldn't be more than a few inches wide. Their skin was tight, showing off bones in places that bones shouldn’t be, and their faces were...almost nonexistent. The only kind of features were two holes and a long crease - a freakish imitation of a smiley face.

The lights clicked on, and I felt that same feeling of...being slammed against a wall. I looked down, and saw that I had been teleported to a podium...with my ankles chained together with silver. I was being chained up? I twisted my ankle a bit, trying to break free,  but the metal just chafed and scraped at my skin, like it was actively clawing at the flesh.

“Hey! Let us go!” Lilli yelled, kneeing the podium hard enough that it rattled, but slightly recoiled away from the anklet cutting her ankle.

**Mmm, feisty as always?**

The woman doll sauntered over to Lilli, moving it’s hand downwards, but Lilli caught it by the wrist before she could do anything.

“Let. Us. Go.”

The doll stared down at Lilli and laughed.

**Quite the Kung-Fu grip you have there, hmm?**

Lilli twisted the doll’s wrist downward, towards her, attempting to turn it towards her, maybe to strike. The doll just met with her, eyeholes-to-eye, and it’s wrist began to glow white. I felt the air next to me freeze in place and grow thinner and thinner - almost completely still.

Lilli kept holding on and squeezing as frost creeped through her skin, turning it from chestnut-colored to pale to completely dead white. She began to grimace in pain, but remained silent until, I guess, it grew too cold and painful for her. She released her grip and held her hand in pain. It looked...awful. Almost frostbitten, almost dead.

**Are there any other objections?**

Raul elbowed me. “Are we gonna…”

“I don’t know, I can’t…’

I briefly tried to focus on Puck, trying to bring him out, but the more I collected my brain power, the more the anklets bit and clawed at my feet. I felt blood rush down.

“Me neither...shit…”

**Let us start the proceedings!**

The two dolls flourished and sat on two tall footstools, one on either side of the microphone, and the rows of seats before us filled with...monsters. They looked like toys, but...something was off about them. There were nutcrackers with real teeth, toy soldiers covered in the boils and bubbles of melted plastic, some of them bleeding red from their wounds, fashion dolls of men, women, and children with actual faces hastily nailed on, noses and mouths askew with real eyes that lazily looked at us, those weird furry bird-things that were creepy enough as they were…

**Now, in order to find who would be the best fit for our dear Shoshana, we shall ask a series of questions. If you have an answer, buzz in, and if you’ll give a good enough answer, we’ll provide you with a point!**

“And...if we don’t?” I hesitantly asked.

I heard giggling from the audience. All those...freakish faces, pointed at me and laughing...it reminded me of too many things I’d rather forget.

 **Now, Question number** **_uno_ ** **...who here has the best qualities? Who amongst you three believes themselves to be the best amongst you when it comes to companionship?**

Wait...this was really a thing?

Oh, God.

Raul gently rubbed his buzzer, before shrugging and hitting it.

**Suitor No. 1?**

“I, uh…” He shrugged. “I’ve known... _Shoshana_ for longer than these two. I know what they like, right? I...uh...I think I’m just better than these two when it gets down to it.”

The two dolls nodded in consideration, which felt kind of...weird. I guess. Were we really being judged?

Lilli gestured towards Raul, I guess trying to ask what the hell he was doing, and he responded by half pointing to the crowd. I tried to look ahead - it was tough with the amount of weird half-living beasts in the crowd, but I saw a figure scampering around in the audience. Samuel?

‘What’s he doing?”

“I dunno,” Raul whispered to me. “Just stall, I think he’s up to something.”

Lilli nodded, and kept rubbing her pale, frozen hand.

**Next question! Now, say we were to let you with our daughter for an evening - what would you do? What’s your idea of a fun evening?**

I drummed my hand on the buzzer, but Lilli elbowed it before I could answer.

“I’d play video games with them, order a pizza, and then we’d go to bed, y’know. Might even break into your booze cabinet that you don’t keep locked?”

**Oh, how positively pedestrian! It’s always nice to live so slovenly every once in a while, isn’t it?**

The crowd booed, in a monsterous roar. Lilli gave them the finger. “Do something about it! I ain’t going!”

Samuel was reaching the far end of the audience seats - or, at least, what we could see of it.

**Well, I’m afraid our friends don’t agree with you.**

Lilli winced in pain at...something…but didn’t even flinch or tear her hate-filled eyes away from the dolls or the crowd of monsters.

**How about the cute one in the middle? What’s your idea of a fun night?**

I looked around for the cute on in the middle before I felt everyone’s eyes on me and my...my weird dress.

“Uh…”

The air around me cooled. I saw my own breath cloud in front of me.

I tried to cover up th exposed skin on me, and the scars that I knew wouldn’t go away.

“I’d...I’d try to…”

**Times up!**

In an instant, everything around me froze and warmed, a flash freeze that reached to my bones, chilled all my blood, and heated it back up fast enough to shock all my nerves into numbness. I barely stifled a scream before doubling over the podium.

**Oh dear! That’s not the kind of stamina we’re looking for.**

**Two for two of bad answers. Shall we move on?**

I caught my breath and felt a hand rub my back - which only managed to shock me even more. I swatted it off, then focused on my hand, or...whatever I would use to summon Puck. White fire briefly enveloped my fist before fizzling out into nothing - seemingly involuntarily. Were we really stuck?

“Come on, can’t you be more forgiving?” Raul asked.

**Don’t you understand? We need to thin you three down to one!**

**Speaking of punishment, don’t we have a question for that?**

Lilli groaned.

**Now, say Shoshana and you are out at a party, and she speaks out. How would you punish her?**

We remained silent.

**Tick, tick, tick…**

The cloud of freezing air returned, and Lilli slammed the button.

“I’d...fuck, I’d put her in the car I guess? I’d...is that what you want to hear?”

**Mm, a bit of grounding? Treating one like a little kid...has it’s own interesting feeling, doesn’t it?**

“God, shut up…”

I looked ahead at Samuel. He was looking around on the walls for...something.

**Well, that’s the basic relationship questions out of the way...what next?**

**Why don’t we get a bit...steamy?**

The ambient lights in the room turned from brilliant whites to soft pinks.

Oh, Christ.

**Now, let’s say you’d want to spend all night long with Shoshana. How would you do it?**

“Oh!” I pressed the button. “I’ve done all-nighters before! I just drink a few sodas and energy drinks, and then, like, I’m usually ready to go for the whole night? It’s fun!”

Everyone’s eyes fell on me.

“W-what?” I looked around at Raul and Lilli, who were both looking at me, shocked.

The crowd erupted into applause, cheers, ‘woos’.

“No, no! I was talking about, like, video games! Gam-gaming!”

**Such a brave response!**

“I’m not brave! That’s not - !”

**One point to the cute one in the middle!**

I saw both Lilli and Raul freeze, Raul gasping in pain.

‘Hey! That’s not...don’t do that!”

**Why not? We have to decide one way or another.**

Samuel was gone. I couldn’t see him.

Lilli glared at me, shivering, with eyes full of some kind of emotion that I couldn’t place. I didn’t know if she was angry at me, if she hated me...but I couldn’t shake the fact that I had caused her pain.

**Next question!**

“How...many more?” Raul coughed. “Come on, we’re not going to be here all day!”

**Oh, you’re right about that, honey!**

**Now, next question - what is your favorite part of Shoshana’s body?**

We looked at one another, knowing what would happen if either of us were to answer. It was an unwinnable game. We couldn’t…

**We need an answer! Come on, sweeties...we’re sure you now by now what happens if you ignore us…**

I took a deep breath and removed my hand from the button. I closed my eyes and thought of winter. I thought of God.

I heard an eletrical failure, which I had assumed was just my brain shutting down after another cold shock.

“Hello? Hello?” Samuel’s voice rang inside my head.

**What’s going on?**

**Hey - those lights aren’t meant until the games and recreation section!**

**Stop - ! Fiddling with the props! Someone must be backstage…**

**Don’t bring out the bed yet! Stick to the script! Guards!**

I opened my eyes and felt the pain from my ankles fade away. The golden cuffs were rapidly dissolving. I looked ahead and saw two four-man squads of clockwork soldiers march across the stage.

I felt Puck’s energy come forward, but before I could act, Hippolyta had already burst forward in a flash of fire, slamming down onto one squad of the soldiers and kicking over the rest with her leg cloaked in bright red flame. The audience got soaked in a geyser of black blood, and they screamed before dissolving into nothing.

**What is going on?! You’re ruining the party!**

I glanced towards one of the TV screens lining the side of the room. They were pitch black, but dripping with black sludge, and an image of a golden mask was...somewhat coming out of ach of them.

“I...think I know what these controls do, but...dammit, I can play the Orchestra with finesse and skill! This is simply a less advanced version!”

A heart-shaped bed descend from the ceiling from cords before being swung across the room, slamming against a platoon of clockwork soldiers coming out from the sides.

“This...is _child’s play_...compared to what I do!”

He made a noise like he was grunting, and there was the sound of a lever swinging. I backed away from the podiums, meeting with the other two in the middle. Puck, Don Pedro, and Hippolyta surrounded us, brandishing whatever weapons they had, and we watched the chaos around us. Shifting lights, props falling from the sky, the podiums in front of us moving up and down, getting stuck and jammed in the middle…

Gold chains descended from the ceiling and wrapped around themselves like snakes. The golden box in the middle of the room shook a bit, and the lights eventually broke entirely.

The room shifted from a golden, opulent stage to a dark chamber of rusted metal and iron. Spikes lined the rim of the stage, the televisions broke one-by-one, shooting jets of blood out, and the chains lost their golden sheen, instead becoming thin, the color of broken, old steel, and ended in wicked metal hooks. The podiums became cages, and more were hanging on the ceiling.

 **Stop it! Whatever’s happening! Sto** p it!”

“Here it is! This should…”

Samuel pressed a button, and the metal box slowly descended. The two dolls got out of the way completely, ignoring us.

“S-Shoshana? Sweetie?” The girl doll said meekly.

“You’re, you’re not supposed to...be ready yet…”

The box opened like a heavy duty safe, leaking cold, damp mist.

Max gripped the edge of the box, coughing and sputtering. They were only wearing a nightgown and a look of complete hatred.

“Oh! Shoshana! What a suprise! You came down early!” The girl doll said, obviously faking their enthusiasm.

“My dear, won’t you look at how much your parents love you? We’ve...prepared this! Entirely for you!”

The suited doll reached forward, but Max didn’t respond in kind. They gripped the doll’s throat and slammed it against the box’s open lid, then again, and again, spraying ceramic skin and black blood until the doll’s head was completely destroyed. Only a small neck remained.

The female doll lunged at Max, succeeding in knocking them off balance, but they quickly reversed the hold and ended up straddling on top of the doll. They punched it’s face again and again, creating a large crater into it’s head until absolutely nothing remained but a black hole.

The two dolls were dead.

Max breathed heavily from their sitting position, white nightgown stained with black, blood dripping from their red hair and balled fists.

They looked weakly towards the three of us, and our Personas.

[The room exploded in white.](https://youtu.be/o2bAh0n518E)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this one is short...I think? I'm starting to think length doesn't really matter as much as I think it does.  
> I had a really cramped week, so this isn't as long as I think I'd like it to be, but at the same time I really just wanted to give a short, satisfying conclusion to this arc, and hopefully catharsis for those who thought this chapter hit a bit too close to home.
> 
>  
> 
> [Discord!](https://discord.gg/wXWrqYb)


	29. To Risk To Live

The four of us were forcibly ejected from the door in a burst of white light. I landed on my face, skidding to halt on the black hardwood floor, and felt a large weight crush me further.

I swiped at whoever landed on me and groaned. I still felt frozen, kind of, like my blood was still struggling to move. Whenever I glanced at my flesh, I saw remnants of cold, blue ice coating my fingertips.

“Ugh...that sucked…”

“What do you mean?” Raul jumped up readily. “We did it! I think, but we still did something!”

“I mean, that’s how the last two went, right?” Lilli cracked her neck before laying on the ground, exhausted. “Beat up some fucks, everything went white…”

“Yeah, but we got...shot out. That doesn’t seem right…” he turned to me. “Right?”

I slowly tipped up on my back, like a turtle. “I mean...maybe that’s just them waking up…”

Raul slowly nodded.

“We did it!” Samuel finally announced! “We did...whatever it is we were doing in there!”

Lilli raised her fist in mock-triumph.

“What now?” I asked, exhausted. 

“I...don’t know.”

“Should we go see Max?”

Raul shook his head. “If they’ve woken up, I’d want to give them some time to rest before we…man, I don’t even know if I want to explain what’s going on to them?”

“Yo, you got pictures, right?”

Raul nodded, retrieved his camera from his bag, and handed it to Lilli. I sat up and inched closer to her, peeking over her shoulders. She used the buttons on each side of the big, bulky camera and scrolled through the photo gallery. There were pictures of the hall, the portrait, the statues, and several of the big, fat bear as it rampaged around the kitchen - most were blurry. In fact, all of them had this weird sense of...unreality to them. It wasn’t like they were pictures of real life, but stills from a movie, like they had been fabricated on a movie sense. They looked real, but your mind was constantly trying to tell you they were fake.

“Weird…”

“I know, right?”

“D’ya think…” I looked at them a bit more. “Y’all think we can put them online?”

“Why?”

I shrugged. “I dunno. Mabe just to...see if people can relate? Didn’t Mr. Carter say there were more like us?”

Raul nodded. “Maybe. I’ll have to see if I can find any other sources.”

“So we gonna head home?”

I shrugged. “I feel kinda...bad.”

“Yeah, me too. Still feel frozen,” Lilli flexed her fingers. “I just wanna go home and take a long shower…”

“Yeah, same…”

“Ah, I figured it would be over soon…”

We all turned to Samuel.

“I...I understand. You will be back soon, shall you?” He said. “I know I mostly serve as a simple helper, but I do wish you’ll be able to return.”

“We will, won’t we?” Raul turned to the two of us. “Yeah. And don’t worry, you’re doing more than you think you were.”

“You pretty much saved us today…” Lilli affirmed. “Thanks, I guess.”

“Yeah, man.” I tried to smile at Samuel. “You did a lot. Don’t sweat it.”

“I...thank you.” He bowed deeply. “I’ve grown to know more about my purpose here...somewhat. I’m confident that you are the key to discovering more about myself. I deeply appreciate your kindness.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“In any case, I shall wait for your return! Please don’t be late!”

 

We had decided to visit Max after school tomorrow. After Raul dropped me off I took a shower, tried to warm myself up as best I could without Rowan getting suspiscious, and tried to act as normally as I could - despite probably having just saved someone from death at the hand of their personal demons. Maybe. I was still trying to figure out the specifics of it myself.

But the point was - I had saved someone. I...did something. I hope. But, still! Me and Puck - we saved someone with…

My heart was beating. I was awake in my bed, staring at the ceiling, wrapped in every comforter I could find in the house. I was...I think this was the biggest thing I’ve done.

I slept and dreamt of nothing.

 

####  **Thursday, August 15th**

Raul drove us to the hospital again, parking in a somewhat secluded lot. He dug a pass out of his bag and hung it on the window before we left.

On the way to the hospital, he had said that Gabe was off duty last night, so he didn’t know what was going on. However, the news vans outside had doubled from two to four, so I had to assume something was happening. I felt my heart skip a beat or two as I explored all the possibilities, and how awful they must be.

We walked through a seperate entrance, passing by some nurses smoking outside, and headed to an elevator that was seemingly just for staff. 

Raul was visibly nervous on the ride up. I couldn’t blame him. He said he didn’t have any news, and all we knew from last night was that we made  _ something _ happen - whether it was good or bad, we didn’t know.

We reached the fourth floor after the longest thirty seconds of my life. I felt all the confidence and pride in myself from last night drain from my body. What if we fucked it? What if something happened? What if...what if we went wrong somewhere? We didn’t know how this theater stuff worked. We sure as hell didn’t know about Personas. How were we supposed to know what to do?

The fourth floor was still empty of other people - only a few faculty milling about. We turned the corner to Max’s room and saw two people outside - one, a male, in a charcoal sweatervest and matching slacks, the other, a female, in a soft pink sweater and jeans.

Raul took a breath in. I could see the fear and apprehension fade from his face. Lilli looked away awkwardly before sighing, seemingly resigning herself.

“Who are…”

“Those are Max’s parents.” Lilli whispered to me before I could finish my sentence.

“Oh….Oh.”

Raul was the first to walk forward. The three of them exchanged words in hustled tones, before Raul let out a huge breath of relief. He motioned for me and Lilli to come up.

“Lilli!” the woman exclaimed, embracing her in a one-sided hug. “So, so glad you could come. Shoshana has been talking about the two of you since last night.”

The man looked less than enthused, but still smiled. 

“Yeah, no...no problem.” She weasled her way out of the hug, obviously uncomfortable.

“Uh, hey, Roger, Gia…” Raul made a gesture to me. “This is Julie, Max met her over the summer and we...uh...joined our friend group.

Gia - the woman in the pink sweater - extended a hand. Her fingers were softer than any I’ve experienced. “Very glad to meet you! I’m so, so glad you could come. We were all so worried about her, weren’t we?” She spoke with a slight accent that I couldn’t place. “Why didn’t you come sooner? All you could’ve done was call us, we’d let you in…”

Lilli shrugged. “We were, uh…trying to sa-”

“We were helping with the efforts at school” Raul butted in. “Y’know, helping with the cards, and the…” I saw him blank mentally.

“We helped run the donations?” I mentioned.

“Yeah! We helped run the donations, the, uh...big jar in the cafeteria…” he motioned a jar the size of a football. 

The man - Roger? - shook his head. “Shoshana should know more than anyone we have enough money. Let me know about the total, I’ll help donate it some foundation, one or the other.”

Gia nodded. “Would the three of you like to go inside? Shoshana is resting, but I’m sure she’d love to meet with you all. Would perk her right up!”

“Yeah, that was the plan.” Lilli nodded.

“Well, I do have to settle some...canceled doctor’s appointments.” Roger tugged at Gia’s sweater. “Take your time, you three.” 

The two of them walked to the entrance of the ward. Lilli groaned. “Fuckin’ hate those two.”

“After last night…” I mumbled. “Yeah, me too. Let’s just...go see Max.”

Raul nodded and opened up the door.

The hospital room felt...emptier than all of the ones I’ve been in. There was only one of those nursing beds, for one - the only other furniture in the room was a set of couches against a window, a flat-screen TV mounted on a swivel on the wall, and a nursing computer on wheels. 

Max was laying bleary-eyed in the bed, dressed in an ill-fitting hospital smock, hooked up to about five different tubes. He didn’t notice us, staring at the T.V.

“Max?”

He didn’t turn to us. “What’s up?”

Raul inched towards him. “You feeling alright?”

He nodded.

Raul placed a hand on Max’s. They grabbed it tightly. 

“This place sucks.”

Raul nodded. “I know, man.”

Lilli walked around to the other side of the bed. I mentally froze, not sure where to go, so I just put my hands on the railing of the bed and pulled myself up, feet on the bottom wheels.

Max looked at the four of us. “What’s with the positioning?”

“Nothin’, man,” Lilli said. “We’ve been worrying about you. Just wanted to know how you’ve been doing.”

Max glared at each of us - I could see him thinking, though I wasn’t sure what was going on in his head. “Well, nobody asked me about a binder. Things could be worse.”

I cut right to the chase. “Did you have any weird dreams?”

His head fell against the pillow. “Fuck. It sucked. It was like, I dunno. I was in my house. But it was more like a maze. I wasn’t even myself. I was more like some kind of ghost. I saw a lot of shitty things I didn’t want to see. Lot of sex and murder and gross shit.”

Lilli leaned forward. “Like what?”

Max tried to put his thoughts in order. “Monsters. Some of them looked like my old toys. Y’know. Teddy bears and those Cutie Chrissie dolls. A lot of them were just…” His face soured and he gave up talking. “It was awful.”

“Sounds like it sucks,” I said, trying to play cool, but then I realized this probably wasn’t a good place to play cool. “Not that we’d know,” Wait, that’s the opposite of what I...what am I trying to say? Fuck. “We weren’t there.”

Raul elbowed me, almost knocking me off the bed. It kind of hurt! Dick.

“What did you see before you woke up?”

Max thought for a second. “I saw you three. But you had some kinda monsters with you. Not...monsters. Angels.  Something like that.”

Lilli poked Max in the head. “Hey, we’re trying to get at something.”

“What? I dreamed about you. So what.”

Raul shook his head and pulled out his camera, handing it to Max.

“What do you think of this?”

Max stared at him before carefully taking it from Raul’s hands. They scrolled through each picture.

“...the fuck?”

“Yeah, so…”

He glared at all of us. 

“You…”

“We saw all of it, yeah.”

“You were actually in there.”

“Yep.”

“What the fuck.”

Max handed the camera back to Raul. He had a complete poker face, but his hands were shaking hard. “You better have a good fucking explanation.”

Raul looked away, rubbing the back of his neck - his tell. 

Lilli began to explain, but stumbled over some of her words early on and got discouraged. “Fuck, I dunno, man.”

Max turned off the TV and flicked a switch on his bed. A light on the door turned on - do not disturb?

[“I want an explanation.”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwSvrvq9Quo)

I gulped. 

“So, two-three weeks ago, we found this building on main street…”

“Uh-huh…”

“And we found this fella inside, Samuel, he wears a mask.”

“Sure.”

“He can use this thing called the...Orchestra? He uses it to call down doors…”

“Whatever.”

“And we found out we can go through doors, and we can go inside people’s minds and dreams and stuff…”

“Alright.”

“And when you went into your coma, we went through your mind and we pulled you out.”

Max glanced at Raul, who nodded. 

“Sounds rad.”

“And those things you saw last night were Personas,” Lilli threw in. “They fuckin’ rule. Mine’s Hippolyta, and she can throw fire and shit.”

I sighed and nodded. “Puck. He’s a fairy.”

“Mine is Don Pedro.”

Max looked at the pictures again. “I can’t say for sure you guys are bullshitting me.”

“Yeah, it’s...a tough pill to swallow…”

“Can you take me there? When I get out?”

“When are you getting out?” Lilli asked.

“I don’t know. I think they want to run some tests on me to make sure I’m not Patient Zero for some world ending virus. Not that I’d mind.”

“Once you get out and get back in school, yeah.” 

“Be sure to bring a weapon,” I suggested. “Uh, not that you’d need it, but...just in case.”

“I’ll just go through Lilli’s room.”

“Fuck you.”

“And what if this is fake?” Max crossed their arms. “It all sounds ok, as far as I know. But what if this is just the world’s shittiest prank?”

“Fuck, man, then I’ll buy you a soda.”

Max turned to Lilli in silence.

“Get me a two liter.”

“No, I’ll get you a can. And a hot dog from The Pound.”

Max nodded. “Deal.”

“Anything else you need us to tell you?” I said, internally cringing at that sentence that I actually let out of my mouth. “Uh, they caught the kid that killed the kid in the forest.”

“Yeah. I saw. It’s fucked.” Max nodded. 

“They’re making a donation fund at school.” I added.

“Are they making me a big-ass card?”

“I think so.”

“Hell  _ yes _ .”

Raul checked his phone. “I dunno when we should go, but I’ll be back tomorrow.”

Max nodded. “I don’t think you guys would want to draw suspicion to yourself. Head out whenever. I guess.”

I nodded and jumped off the bed.

“But, uh…”

We all turned towards Max.

“I don’t know if what you said is true, but...thanks. Thanks for doing it.”

Raul nodded. “Anytime, man.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To compensate for how slow this month is going, next chapter will be really different format-wise. I'll see if people like it, and if so I can use it as semi-filler in between arcs.   
> God, I love writing Max.  
>  [Discord!](https://discord.gg/wXWrqYb) Now with some custom emojis! Also, I've started hanging out in voice chat and talking to folks in there just to bullshit and chill. If that interests you, be sure to join!


	30. Vacation Town

####  **Friday, August 16th**

I was still kind of vibrating and light-headed from the past few days...the fact that I actually did something. I was practically vibrating in my chair the entire day. It felt weird, like, really weird. But not in a bad way, like I had been used to. I felt great. 

I did it. I used this Persona stuff, this Theater...it all worked.

Plus, it was a weekend. I could finally rest without worrying about Max or Theaters or anything. I had already planned to turn my phone on silent for the next two days. Biking to and from school was a lot easier on me than normal - I didn’t even worry about cars or riding away from everything.

I climbed up the steps to Rowan’s house to find a package on the door. It was large, about the size of my torso, and addressed to me. From Tennessee.

Oh, ok.

I brought it inside - it was a bit heavier than I anticipated - plopped it onto the table, and, not wanting to use a knife, poked holes in the packing tape with one of the 10 thousand pencils Max bought me.

The very first thing I saw was my old white yoga mat, carefully bound together with twine, and the few pairs of yoga pants, tank tops, and sports bras that I owned and  _ very specifically _ didn’t bring with me, but I never really wanted to tell my parents why.

I dug a bit deeper and found the box to the NuGame console we had bought last year, and my old Gemfriend, still in the shoebox I kept it in. Just to be sure, I opened the NuGame box and made sure the controllers still clicked onto the sides. It felt good.

This...it was a good day. I felt compelled to call my mom, but I still was winding down from everything. I still felt that residual cold, though all of my wounds had pretty much disappeared by now. 

I was just ready for a quiet weekend.

 

####  **Saturday, August 17th**

“Julie?”

I woke up to the sound of Rowan rustling the door.

“Hey, you awake?”

I looked out the window. It was pitch black outside.

“No.”

“Oh, ok. I’m about to head out early to go shopping. You want to come with?”

I looked at him from the corner of my eye.

“Shopping?”

“Like, uh, thrift shopping. Just to see what I can find.”

I’ve been thrift shopping before, but it was mostly when my grandmother dragged me to antique stores as a kid. It wasn’t fun, really, since there was nothing to do. She just basically looked at old dishes and chairs while I was bored out of my skull.

But, well, I have my phone nowadays.

“Yeah, sure.”

 

Lydon felt empty this early in the morning. Other than a few soft streelights, there really wasn’t anything to keep the darkness away. The sky was pitch black way above us. 

I mostly played on my NuGame, getting acclimated to how wide the controllers were. It was kind of difficult playing on a console that was only a few inches smaller than my entire torso. I started a new game in Age of Arisen VI and mostly kept quiet, though Rowan randomly decided to start talking about he played the first Age of Arisen back in the 90’s and just began waxing nostalgia. I didn’t care enough to stop him.

Once we got off the ferry, we got breakfast at an Olympus Burger in Innsmouth. It actually felt kind of nice, since Lydon didn’t have fast food. I liked eating trash sometimes.

Rowan told me that he usually checks three stores every few months, each a couple blocks from each other. I could stay inside if I wanted, but I decided to come along just so I didn’t seem antisocial.

We entered the first store, a kind of weird-feeling off-white place with tired staff and junk lining the walls. Rowan immediately beelined for the back, past the clothes and to the toy section. I just followed him.

“So, we’re going to hit toys, because they usually have old-box PC games with the board games - y’know, because they all look the same, I suppose, He said, rooting through a pile of old games. “Then there’s usually some good stuff in the electronics section - it’s mostly just VCRs and old stuff like that, but there might be some hidden gems.”

“So you just look for old electronics?”

“Rowan looked at me and shrugged. “I mean, yeah. I need to spend money on something.”

“Why not save it?”

He shook his head. “I’ve been saving it, but it’s just kind of...sitting there. I’m not gonna go bankrupt anytime soon. Why not just buy dumb stuff?”

I nodded.

“Well, I guess it’s good I’m saving it…” He pulled a long, thin box out, one covered in cartoon animals, and shrugged. “Once I finally settle down, I’d be nice to have something to have for my kids.”

“You want kids?”

“Someday...it’s a bit off. Just have to find someone right and all that,” He turned the box over and laughed. “Hey, do you want to learn copyright law?”

“What?”

He showed me the box. “Look at that!”

I glanced at what he was pointing at. It looked like Barnabus Bear, one of the Destinyworld mascots, but something was...kind of different that I couldn’t quite place.

“I know this company, I think, they made a bunch of clone board games in the early 90’s with knockoff characters…” he twisted it around, showing the rest of the characters. “Of course, Destiny Corp sued, but these guys actually won the case - not that it mattered, since the legal costs bankrupted them.”

“How did they win? That’s just straight-up the Bear dude.”

“They used the ‘moron in a hurry’ defense.”

“That’s...rude.”

“It’s my favorite law thing,” he smiled. “It means that only a ‘moron in a hurry’ would mistake the two. And, y’know, Destiny wasn’t doing so hot in the public back then, so the jury sided with the other company.”

“Wow.”

There wasn’t anything in that store that Rowan wanted, or the other store. It wasn’t until we got to the third place that he saw something. The moment we walked in he gasped and rushed to the ‘new arrivals’ table to a...blue pyramid thing.

It was literally a blue pyramid made of plastic, with a small base and a long, tall top. It looked like a prop from a bad fantasy movie. 

“Oh man, oh man, how much…” he looked all over for a price tag. “$50?” he made a groan of indecision. 

“What...is it?”

“It’s a Silicon Tech Statement…” he said, like he thought I knew what he was talking about.

“Uh…”

He pulled open a side of the pyramid, revealing several slots and plugs. It was a computer.

“This was the first and last Silicon Tech computer ever made. It’s so rare! I’ve seen them go on eBabylon for, like, $700...ugh, man, this is so cool!”

He took out his phone’s flashlight and checked inside the plug-ins and ports. “Man, that’s a lot of dust...this was probably sitting in some dude’s garage since it came out.”

“Are you gonna get it?”

“I’m more surprised they have it here! Like, these stores usually check online stores for prices before they put stuff out here...I bet that nobody here knew what it was.”

“And it’s for $50?”

“Yeah...but I’d probably have to spend four times that just to repair it, and it probably uses lot a proprietary parts, not any regular compatible boards...I don’t think it even has a XB compatible port or regular sockets for, like, RAM, or…”

He kept rambling for a bit. I just watched him nerd out.

“Oh, man, what the hell. This is the cheapest I’ll be able to get it, anyway. You think you could help me get this in the car?”

 

####  **Sunday, August 18th**

Rowan spent the entire day in the office messing with the computer we got. I just sat there with him, keeping him company has he rambled on to himself. Apparently the computer was dead on arrival, but he had decided to gut it.

I mostly just played more Age of Arisen on the NuGame. I wanted to get to my Gemfriend at some point, but I don’t think I could get accustomed to the old early 2000’s screen like I could when I was, like, 4 or 5.

Lilli texted me early in the afternoon, asking if I wanted to hang out on Monday. I was feeling a lot better, so I just said yeah. What’s the worst that could happen?

 

####  [Monday, August 19th](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUpCAx-Jc_Y)

I was still waiting for Ms. Signe to transfer my stuff over to the AP class, not that I really wanted it to happen. But she gave me free reign to screw off in class until then, so I spent it sitting in the back, still playing on the NuGame. I was addicted, what could I say?

Later in the day I passed by a flyer on a bulliten board for a gymnastics club. It looked professional, unlike the one for golf that I saw earlier, with contact info and bright purple paper. There was another flyer for the lady’s golf team, but there weren’t any takers.

Didn’t someone ask me to join gymnastics way back when? I’m...not sure if I’m ready for that. But I guess I’ll keep it in mind.

After school I met up with Lilli in the lobby. She still looked exhausted from Thursday, but I couldn’t blame her. I don’t know why I was recovering quicker, but I think I shouldn’t think about it.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

We didn’t talk for a bit.

“So, uh…” I twisted the strap of my backpack. “What do you...wanna do?”

She looked away. “I dunno. I just want to not get so fucked up about stress and shit…” She turned towards the door of the school, pushing aside people exiting. “Hey, wanna go to an arcade?”

“There’s an arcade here?”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s, uh, a fuckin’ barcade or whatever. But it’s open to everyone until 7 pm.”

“A...barcade?”

“Like, an arcade, but with booze.”

“Ah, I...I’m not sure if I want to drink…”

“Me neither, but they won’t serve us...uh, you, anyway…”

“What do you mean?”

She smirked. 

Lilli and I walked to the place in somewhat silence. She offered to carry my backpack, but I was still kind of protective over it, just in general. We walked to a district off of main street, by that one rich person shopping district I saw once. It was a single-story brick building, perfectly cube shaped, with two windows on the front, steet art on the bottom of the walls, and a sign that just said ‘Endless Fantasy’.

It was dark, kind of upsettingly so. The only lights were those blacklights that highlighted white, making Lilli’s hair look incandescent and my sneakers glow in the dark. The floor was garish, covered in colorful, clashing drawings of planets and nebulas. It looked like a place from the 80’s, which I guess what was it was going for, with lines and lines of arcade machines. The only thing that made it feel like a bar was a neon-lined counter in the back.

Lilli walked to an old Puck Man cabinet, set down her backpack, and pulled out a small brown bag. 

“What’s that?”

She looked at me oddly. “It’s...change.”

“Oh.”

I watched the screen change as she put in a quarter. The high scores were...weird. ‘FUK’ ‘UUU’ ‘ALL’ ‘ITS’, and then just ‘JON’ and ‘JEF’. She studied the scores, then played for a bit.

“I try to come here, like, every couple of days…” she studied the screen as she played. It was the only time I saw her be as focused. “Nobody fuckin’ bugs me here. It’s nice.”

“What do you mean?”

“At school, y’know...feel like I’m at a zoo sometimes,” her grip on the joystick tightened. “People just watch me, nobody cares what I do. I’m just, like, there.”

“I know how you feel.”

“You do?”

“Well…” I pressed the back of my fingers against my thumb. “It’s, uh...it was like, at my old school...I didn’t have any friends, and nobody really ever talked to me...I was just kind of alone. I felt like a ghost sometimes.”

I watched as she ran her character against a wall until a demon got her.

“Yeah, like...I dunno. People sure as shit see me. They just don’t care about me. Just, like...I’m a fucking train wreck…”

She lost her last life, and put in ‘LNM’ as her name on the hi-score table.

“Not that I give a shit. Don’t want those shitheads messing around with me anyway.”

“Yeah, I guess there’s that...solitude is good, sometimes…”

“But, y’know, like...sometimes…” she put in another quarter, but hesitated on starting the game. “Sometimes I just kinda wanna talk to people. Not Max and Raul and...you...but I’m fine with this little fuckin’ thing I carved out. Fear is just another word for respect, s’far as I know.”

She played much more poorly than her other game, but I could tell it was on purpose. Once her game ended, she was still on the high score board, but at the very bottom. She just put three exclamation points as her name.

I played a few more games with her before heading home for the day. It ended up being pretty fun, once we both loosened up. The stress was getting to us both, so I think we’d have to do this more often.

 

####  **Tuesday, August 20th**

I was walking out of P.E. when I saw two people by the builletin board. One of them was a fairly tall-looking girl, in a white shirt and a sweatervest. The other was a teacher that I had seen around once or twice.

“Look! See!” the girl pointed to the flyer for woman’s golf. “One person took a thing! That means people are interested!”

“It’s not that people aren’t interested, Carrie,” the teacher groaned. “You can’t just put stuff up on these without faculty approval.”

“And you guys wouldn’t approve it anyway!”

“Carrie, we already have a golf team. And it’s not gender-segregated.”

“Then why is it all dudes?”

“Because...I don’t know. Why don’t you sign up now?”

She grumbled a bit, before she saw me walk by from out of the crowd. “Hey! Hey, would you be interested in golf?”

The teacher facepalmed.

I made an awkward smile. “I-I, uh...I was actually one of the ones that...took the thing, I think it’s...it’s, it’s in my pocket somewhere!”

Carrie’s eyes lit up, and she immediately took me by the arm. “See! People are intrested!”

“Take the flyers down by tomorrow.” The teacher walked off.

“Uh, sorry you had to see that,” she put her hands on my shoulders. “But you wanna play golf, right? You weren’t pulling a fast one on me?”

“No, I, uh, I did take one of the little things a week ago…” I gently brushed her hands off. “I don’t have, uh...anything, though…”

“Don’t worry, I got clubs you can borrow. We’re gonna meet next Friday in the lobby. Oh! My name is Carrie Dutch.”

“Julie Bousher.”

She shook my hand. “Nice to meet you! I’ll see you next Friday, right?”

“Uh...yeah?”

“Nice! See you then!”

 

####  **Wendesday, August 21st**

 

**Good news: Max should be out of the hospital by Thursday, Friday at the latest.**

**hell! yea**

**That sounds good**

**Yep! Literally nobody knows how they recovered at the hospital. They may do more tests, but I think the common idea is that it was just a weird concussion.**

**Wait how did they get better**

**We saved them, Julie.**

**Yeah but** **  
** **Oh** **  
** **OK**

**are they still pissed**

**Not pissed, just curious. I think we should bring them after school when they get back.** **  
** **I think it’s gonna be the first new person Samuel’s met, too.**

**That will be fun**

**god Max nSam ule holy shit** **  
** **were gonna die**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is how I want stuff outside of arcs to go - just short vigenettes with social link characters. Just so we're not stuck in August for, like, 5 more months. Lemme now if you like them!
> 
> [Discord!](https://discord.gg/wXWrqYb) Last night someone told me that Max should start a ska band and I'm still reeling from it.


	31. The Future is Terrifying

####  **Thursday, August 22nd**

Raul texted me right as I got to school, saying that Max had began attending again. I was a bit anxious, and kind of excited - it was, well, it still felt like the first good thing I’ve done in my life.

The first few classes did feel awkward, though. Mostly because of the whispering that I had heard. People were whispering about Max, saying that they faked the entire thing, or that they didn’t even know what was up with them. I wanted to speak up, but I couldn’t find the voice. 

After P.E., Lilli and I had walked down the hallway into the main lunchroom. We all found that our paths through classes more-or-less crossed at the lunchroom at this time, right before the first lunch slot. I stood by Lilli, hiding inside the little vending machine divet near the entrance to the cafeteria. 

Raul was the first one to find us. “Hey. Max got caught up in the cafeteria. They’re giving him the, uh, money and card.”

“What’re they gonna do with money? They got enough already…” 

Raul shrugged. “I’m not sure. Maybe they’ll just donate it.”

“How’s Max doing?” I asked.

“Pretty well. They couldn’t find anything wrong with him, so they didn’t have to keep him longer than usual.”

“What do you mean? ‘Couldn’t find anything wrong’, there was a lotta shit wrong with them.”

“I meant physically. No sign of brain trauma, no sign of atrophy...it’s pretty weird, but, I mean, the less they look into it, the better.”

Our conversation was cut short by the sound of something hard and heavy hitting the ground. I jumped away, nearly flinching.

Max was standing between us, with a small card tucked underneath their armpit. A plastic jug full of quarters, pennies, and a few dollars had landed by Lilli’s foot.

“Huh,” she put her foot on top of the jug and started rolling it around. “How much?”

“Not sure,” Max said, prying it from under Lilli’s shoes. “But it’s about eight pounds.”

“Eight pounds of coins?!” Raul exclaimed.

“Yeah. Coins. So it’s probably around five bucks.”

He looked my way, then held out the jug. He looked me dead in the eyes, and I couldn’t tear my gaze away from his dull, maroon-colored irises.

I took the jug, gently grasping it from Max’s hands. It did feel...heavy. I wasn’t good a gauging weights. I think I could hurt someone if I could throw it at them.

Then he let go. 

The jug plummetted to the ground, bringing my hands with it. I barely managed to catch it before it crushed my toes, but only barely! It was a few inches from the ground, and I was still straining to hold it up. I didn’t even think I could lift it up any heigher than it was now...it was just too heavy!

Lilli elbowed Max in the shoulder, but they didn’t seem to react. 

“You guys wanted to show me something today. What is it?”

 

We met in the lobby after school, Max still lugging his jug and card.

“How many people signed that card, anyway?” Raul asked.

“Twenty.”

We walked towards Raul’s car. Max groaned.

“What?”

“Raul, I’ve been gone for so long. Why haven’t you been able to get a new car? Why couldn’t you suprise me?”

“Hey, if you want to put down a payment! A-and you’ve only been gone for a week.”

“I will not. You have to learn how to earn things yourself, you socialist cur.”

Raul groaned. “You’re just sounding like my parents…”

Lilli rolled her eyes. “Jesus Christ, guys, let’s go.”

“I need to see this...whatever it is with my own eyes.” Max climbed into the front seat, sitting comfortably until Lilli tapped his shoulder. He got out and sat next to me on the springy back seat.

“So, uh, Max,” Raul leaned back to him. “Just so you know, it’s gonna get weird.”

“How weird?”

“Uh…”

“How much am I going to question about my life? Is this something of new cosmic importance or, like, a stash of vape juice you guys found in the woods?”

We stayed silent. Lilli tried to say something, but quickly shut up.

“Oh my God…” Max perked up. “You guys found vape juice.”

“Dude, shut the fuck up! We…” Lilli snapped, but after exchanging a disapproving look from Raul, she took a breath and calmed down. “This ain’t a fucking joke. It’s gonna be huge.”

Max looked at me, eyebrow raised. I just nodded. 

“Alright, alright,” they placed his money jug on the ground. “Take me to your fantasy realm of myth and mystery. Take me to fucking dreamland.”

 

We drove through Lydon in silence, passing by the various stores and homes that lined the road. Around the school, it was mostly small homes and a few empty condos for sale. Near main street was the small, high-end and niche shopping district - fashion, curios and gifts, luxury food and cooking equipment, stuff like that. We drove down main street and parked in the same place as normal. I could see the edge of the giant coffee cup in the distance.

“You said to bring a weapon?” Max looked around him before pulling up the jug, presenting it to Raul and Lilli through the rear-view mirror.

“Maybe not that…” Raul looked around him, at Lilli, and at me. “I...dunno. I think we’ll be good.”

I nodded. “I think our Personas can cover them pretty well…”

“Personas…” Max mused as he got out. “You’ve mentioned that before. What are they?”

None of us had an answer.

We walked down main street again. The police presence was noticeably lighter than it had been the past few days. I actually felt kind of calm. Though, I was a bit worried about Max - how they’d feel about this, if they’d think we’re lying...I wonder if they have a Persona now? Should we force it to come out, or just let it come naturally?”

“Alright, we’re here.” Raul said as he rounded the corner.

The theater was still there. I don’t know why it wouldn’t. Even when Rowan drove me around early in the morning last Saturday, I still saw it. It was...there. It filled the air with it’s black presence, pure dark obsidian and sinister gold lines covering it’s walls. I felt the gargoyles on it’s roof stare into my eyes, and when I focused I could’ve sworn I heard something...breathing.

Max saw it. I could tell.

“That’s - “

“Yeah, not supposed to be there, right?” Lilli smirked. “Been there since early August.”

“No. No, that’s impossible,” Max shook their head. “We drove past this exact spot yesterday. That-that was an empty lot.”

Raul nodded slowly. “Yeah. We still don’t know why it’s there.”

“This is what you three have been hiding from me?”

“Yeah…” I sighed. “It’s...freaky.”

“Can we go in?” Max asked, voice wavering very slightly. 

“We should, right? Samuel should let us in.” Lilli made the walk across the street, through cars locked in the red light.”

“Samuel? Hey!” Max jogged after her. 

Raul and I looked at eachother.

“He’s taking this better than I thought.”

Raul did a small laugh under his breath. “You can’t phase him. I’ve tried.”

We all met underneath the lights. The door was black, like it was before Max went to the hospital. Lilli, I guess because through force-of-habit, tried pulling the door open, but it didn’t budge.

“It’s locked.” Max noticed.

“Thanks.”

“Hey, Samuel?” Raul knocked on the door. “You there?”

“It was open earlier…” I tried poking a hairpin through the door crack, but it stopped a few centimeters in. “Hm.”

Lilli began pounding on the door. “Hey! We got a guest!”

“Do other people see this?” Max looked behind themselves, watching the few people passing on the sidewalk. “Or are you just banging on nothing.”

“I fuckin’ swear, Max…”

I started feeling...embarrassed. I wasn’t sure why. This was all for nothing. He knew about the Theater, sure, but what about Samuel? The orchestra? The doors? This wasn’t going so good…

“I’m sorry, Max, I just…” I started stuttering. “Hey, maybe we, maybe we should just go home. This isn’t going so well.”

“Why are you apologizing?” Raul asked.

“Yeah, dude, we’ll just try again later.”

“I-I-I, I don’t know, I mean...I don’t know, I just…” 

Max stared at the three of us. “So…”

I sighed.

“Let’s not give up right now. It’s not that important, anyway.”

I nodded. “Yeah...sorry for getting so...worked up…”

I heard the sound of a distant switch throwing, and the four of us began to get bathed in yellow light. The air around us grew cold and thin, and everything outside of the light turned pitch-black, like the first few times we tried this. 

“Took him long enough,” Lilli rolled her eyes, opened the door, and went inside.

Max stared at the lights, then the complete lack of light.

“The fuck?”

“Max, come on.”

We entered the theater lobby, right as we left it. Raul’s first-aid bag and Lilli’s box of weapons were still on the couch, and everything else was pristine and untouched. I saw the painting at the far back - the one that looked like a distant, infinite black sea, but quickly looked away when my brain began to throb. I swear...that painting…

“What the Christ?” Max looked around. “This is way bigger than the outside.”

The significance of everything slowly dawned on them.

“This...this isn’t a joke...holy shit. What is this place?”

“It’s the Theater.” Raul began explaining. “We’re still figuring out how it works. But...we think it’s a way to get into people’s...minds, we think…”

“No. No. You’re fucking with me.”

“It’s true, dude,” Lilli crossed her arms. “It’s fucked, yeah, but it’s how we got you out of that coma.”

“So...so you really weren’t…” Max took a deep breath. He looked like he was about to throw up. “Oh my God. Oh my God. This is insane.”

“We know…” I nodded. “We’re still trying to figure out how it works…but we have some...uh…” I toyed with the hairpin, still in my hand. “Actually, we have no ideas.”

“Where’s Samuel?”

“Hello?”

Max clutched his stomach. “Holy shit, where did that…”

Samuel walked out of the elevator, but stopped dead in his tracks.

“Is that…”

“There’s more of you?”

Samuel raced to us, quickly pacing towards Max. “Hello! Hello! My name is Samuel, and I am so delighted to meet you! What’s your name? Do you know Lilli or Raul or Julie? Do you know me?”

Max looked at Sam incredulously and silently. They slowly brought up their hand and softly poked his mask.

“I would prefer if you didn’t do that.”

I glanced back to Samuel’s meltdown when it was accidentally removed. “Yeah, the mask is kind of off-limits, ‘kay?”

“What are you?”

“I’m Samuel?”

Max groaned. “Yeah, I kind of...got that…” they glanced around at Samuel’s hat, coat, and boots, slowly realizing he didn’t have an inch of skin showing. “Sorry, my name is...my name’s Mask. I mean, Max.”

“Nice to meet you, Mask I mean Max.” Samuel stuck out his hand.

Lilli said ‘oh shit’ softly and had to duck by a nearby column. Raul had a smile slowly growing on his face.

“No, just Max. Max.”

“Max?”

“Yeah.”

“Excellent! I’m happy to meet you, Max.”

Max shook Samuel’s hand. Samuel, being Samuel, didn’t recognize when it was an appropriate time to stop. Max, being Max, didn’t stop shaking until Samuel did.

The two of them kept bouncing up their hands for a solid thirty seconds until Raul had to step in.

“Alright, so Sam here…’runs’ this theater. He helps us enter other people’s...uh...worlds.”

“And I’m guessing he’s...not human.”

“I like to think I am!”

Max rolled his eyes. “Alright, so he’s not human.”

“I look forward to you joining us on our adventures! Ah, it’s been a fun few excursions the past few times. I’m sure you’ll love it.”

“Yeah, it sure has been ‘fun’.” I said under my breath.

“Alright, so, uh...can we go now?” Max looked at Samuel again. 

“I’d rather not…” Raul said.

“Yeah, you still got a lotta shit to know.” Lilli pat Max on the back. “A lotta shit has happened since you’ve been gone.”

“I’’m sure you...people will catch me up to speed.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Max max max max  
> Gonna enter another speed up period soon. Hope you guys don't mind!
> 
> [Discord!](https://discord.gg/wXWrqYb) Reminder that anyone who reads this fic is more than welcome to join, even if you're a guest or have only kudos'd or bookmarked and not commented or anything. If you're anxious, don't worry - we're a small and friendly place, and we've been doing voice-chat meet ups every Friday if you're interested in that! Last week we watched a conspiracy video about how Jesus was fake, and it was really...something.


	32. Good News

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some slight content warnings near the middle - around Saturday and Sunday - for sexual assault mention. Feel free to skip if this would (rightfully) upset you.

####  **Friday, August 23rd**

I managed to get home a bit earlier than normal and almost immediately took a nap. 

We had all agreed to let Max sit on all of the stuff we showed them yesterday. I can’t imagine having to deal this sort of stuff after being introduced to it. I think I had the benefit of just being thrown into it - not that it was better in the long wrong.

By the time I woke up, Rowan was home, cooking dinner. I turned over on my side and mindlessly watched T.V. until I heard the doorbell ring. I shrunk up a bit on the couch.

Rowan walked over to answer the door, and there was some pleasant chatting between him and a middle-aged sounding woman.

“Julie?”

Ah, crap.

I hesitantly got up from the couch and approached the door. Rowan was talking to a Hispanic woman about my mom’s age, maybe a bit older, dressed in jeans and a pastel yellow sweater, along with a pair of black-rimmed glasses.

“Oh! This is the girl you’re taking care of? How sweet!”

She bent down to tussle my hair. I gently brushed her hand off.

“I have a girl about your ag-”

“I’m seventeen.”

Rowan flicked me on the back.

“Oh! I’m...I’m sorry, I just thought…” she awkwardly coughed. “Well, uh, that’s good. That’s better, really…”

The three of us stood in awkward silence.

“So, my husband is getting deployed to Korea around this time next week, and I usually work all day. I was wondering if you’d be able to babysit our daughter every once in a while during the week?”

I thought for a bit. “Babysitting…”

“Well, uh, it wouldn’t be  _ every _ day - maybe really only on Thursdays, really - she’s pretty self sufficient…”

“That sounds...fine.”

“Great! I’ll come over next Monday and let you know what I’d want you to do. Oh, and her name is Albany. She’s a real sweet kid, you’ll love her.”

“Okay.”

“Oh, and I’ll be sure to pay you every day you come over. Thanks! And thanks again, Rowan.”

“No problem, Maria,” Rowan waved. The two exchanged pleasantries before he closed the door to the sunroom. “Well, looks like you have a job!.”

“It’s babysitting,” I rolled my eyes. “I don’t think it’s really a job.”

“Hey, at least you’re getting paid.”

“Yeah.”

 

####  **Saturday, August 24th**

I woke up with a bit of a...weird feeling. I didn’t know how to explain it. I didn’t really feel...bad or anything, like I had been a couple of times in the nightmare worlds or whatever. I just felt...weird.

I crawled out of bed a bit early. It was still dark out - I never really seemed to wake up at any other time. My muscles were a bit...I don’t know. Sore, maybe. 

I glanced towards the yoga mat rolled up next to my dresser and my video games. 

Ugh. Might as well.

I unrolled my mat, took off my baggy pajama pants, and mentally went through my mom’s routine for muscle pain. First was the Standing Forward Bend - which I decided to skip just for modesty’s sake. I decided to do Extended Triangle first, which was one of my favorites, since it looked almost impossible, but it came pretty easy for me. I felt my joints flare up and release almost immediately, but the pain went away as I breathed in and out.

After that, I went into a Cobra Pose, mostly as a wind-down. My back started feeling like it was softening up. 

I then switched to some opposite Reclined Spinal Rotations, which were always comforting - I felt like I was sprawled on the floor, dying. Not that it was any sort of...aspiration at all. It did feel nice to imagine that I wasn’t a part of the world.

I decided to go back into Cobra when...I don’t know. Maybe I accidentally hit the remote with my toe, because the T.V. turned on to those rainbow testing bars.

The signal faded into static, before two red-and-white clawed fingers tore down the interference.

“HELL-HELL-HELL-O!”

My eyes went wide, and I scrambled to the TV, nearly twisting my ankle.

“CHILDREN OF LYDON! It is so GREAT to see you again! I hope this’ll be the last time! I hate being on here!”

I grabbed the VHS tape, slammed it into the slot, and repeatedly pressed record until I heard the reels begin to turn.

“And I KNOW among you there is a very special guest that has begun to really overstay her welcome!”

I sat down on the bean bag, legs clutched to my chest.

The clown chuckled. I saw the puzzle pieces that lined the clown’s set begin to...come apart. I don’t know. It looked like a stagehand was just pushing them out a bit from behind the walls.

“We should  _ get _ into this week’s lesson. We should  _ get _ into this week’s lesson. We should  _ get _ into this week’s lesson. We should  _ get _ int”

The screen cut out into another splash of static, but after a while I heard...studio chatter. People murmuring in the vast distance. Somebody typing on a mechanical keyboard.

**you** .

The text stayed on screen for a few seconds before being manually deleted.

**go home.**

I waited for a second.

**perhaps the suffering of home can be endured better than the death here.**

The screen shut off completely, but I still heard the static hum of the TV.

I stared into the murky darkness, and I swear I…

My heart stopped. I felt my heart started beating faster and faster.

In the complete darkness, I saw footage of Kelly assaulting me in the bathrooms, hands running through my hair, pushing me into the stalls as she groped my waist.

I was frozen for seconds as I watched the scenario play out in my head before slamming the power button, tears welling up in my face.

The screen flashed one more phrase before I shut it off.

**you are still hers.**

####  **Sunday, August 25th**

“You are still hers?”

Raul was sitting on the bean bag on my floor. Rowan had gone out early for work, so I felt comfortable inviting him over.

However, I wasn’t comfortable right now. I was still in shock of my...regression last morning. I was hugging my pillow, trying not to look at the screen and trying to not to think of rose perfume.

“I...don’t want to talk about.”

Raul turned back to the T.V. I didn’t know what was coming next - I forgot that VCR taped stuff even when the screen wasn’t on, so there was still some stuff to go.

First was a short vigenette with Mr. Ick in the far back of the room, throwing up in the corner. It looked fake - peanut butter mixed with corn and water or something. I didn’t like it either way, though. He then turned to the camera, wiped something off of his mask, and the screen turned to more static. The chattering returned, and the typing said

**Sick**

The next scene was just him trying on different masks, looking like different presidents and celebrities or whatever else they could find at the dollar store, before taking off his own eyeless masquerade mask and a mold of his lips and face, revealing his head to be blank. I guess it was just an extension of the bodysuit he usually wore.

**cure.**

The show ended by that point. Raul was looking on in a weird kind of curiosity. “Is that it?”

“I guess.”

“So what was that black bit in the middle?”

I rolled over on the bed. I guess he didn’t see it.

“Man, that’s the weirdest shit. What time is it on?”

I shrugged, stifling a tear. “Weekends, usually. Mornings.”

“How many times have you seen it?”

“Three, I think.”

“Huh.” He pushed the eject button and took the tape in his own hands. “Man, you were right, though. This is right up my alley. Mind if I keep this?”

“No. I mean, yeah. No, uh...no, you can keep it.” I said. I just wanted to get it out of my sight after last morning.

“Cool,” he pocketed the tape and turned around. Our eyes met for a second, and he finally saw my sorry state. “You...alright?”

“I’m good.”

“You’re hanging onto that pillow for dear life.”

I tossed it to the ground.

“Hey, if you’re worried about anything, Persona stuff, let me know. I try to be level headed.”

I looked up at the ceiling, having no intention to tell him about anything. “Thanks.”

“Actually, I don’t think I’m gonna leave until you smile. C’mon. What’s bugging you?”

I thought telling him what I saw in the darkness would feel to weird, but then I remembered about the Theater. “I, I’m just kind of dealing with some problems. I guess.”

“Y’know, I don’t think you ever told me about why you came to Lydon from Tennessee.”

I saw Kelly’s finger running across my lips. “Bullying. I was...I was bullied a lot. For no reason. I wanted to get away.”

“That’s...that’s fair. Is it better at Chelsea, at least?”

I thought of all the close calls. I saw Kelly grabbing me as I left school and bringing me into her car. “It’s fine.”

“That’s good, at least. Uh...I know this isn’t what you want to hear right now, but me, Lilli, Max...we’re all here for you. You have friends now, and given what’s been going on, I don’t think we’re going to grow apart anytime soon.”

I saw Kelly. “I want to stop talking now.”

“That’s fine. I...think I said too much, sorry.”

I stopped talking. He said goodbye and walked out the door. 

I felt awful.

 

####  **Monday, August 26th**

That show. That show. That fucking clown fuck.

I couldn’t get it out of my head. I hated it. It felt like a worm or something. Every time I closed my eyes, I just remembered how it made me feel. I remembered what it reminded me of. 

Every time I felt happy, like I felt like I was doing something good, like I was  _ progressing _ , I always had to be dragged back down to reality - I was always like this. I’m still belong to her.

Ms. Signe told me the exam was next week. Mr. Morat put us into lab partners. I was with this weird dude who sat next to me and was on his phone every class.

I didn’t find the motivation to care.

 

When I got home I got a text from Rowan. He reminded me of my ‘new job’ with that Maria girl. Sure enough, after a bit, she was at the door, dressed in a white blouse and green pencil skirt.

“Hi! Julie, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Awesome!” 

I walked out onto the sunroom with her and closed the door. 

“I own the healthy grocer a little bit away from here - Fresh Earth Market. You heard of it?”

“No.”

“Well, I’ll be sure to give you some freebies every once in a while. And cash. Of course.”

I might actually take her up on that.

We walked to her house - one that looked like Rowan’s colonial, but without a sunroom, and with a dark blue color and siding. 

Her house was more...lived-in than Rowan’s. I saw pictures of a happy nuclear daughter - two daughters, mom and dad, along with photos of the older daughter at a soccer game, and one at a high-school graduation. I noticed there wasn’t any of the little kid except for school pictures.

“Albany?” She said to the empty house.

No response.

“Oh, she’s probably in her room - she’s, uh, she’s very low maintenance, like I said.”

“Ok.”

“You...feeling alright?” She asked as she lead me to the kitchen. 

“I’m fine.” I lied.

“So, usually when she gets home she eats…” 

She gestured to a table, but stopped talking when she saw a still-sealed package of organic baby carrots and honey mustard. 

“Ugh. Albany…”

She began cleaning it up, but I moved in and picked it up. “She doesn’t eat?”

“She can be...temperamental, I guess. She eats.”

“Is that why she’s in her room?”

“No, she’s just in her room because...well...it’s nothing. Don’t worry.”

“OK.”

I looked out the window for a second. “Is she worried about her dad.”

Maria shook her head. “I told her not to worry. Mark’s just doing clerical work with his platoon, running training, that stuff.”

“Is everything ok?”

“Yeah, she’s just kind of...solitary. Really, I just want to make sure she’s eating her after-school snacks and doing her homework. Not that she needs help, but just make sure she’s...productive.”

I looked at the carrots again. “Can I see her?”

“Oh, that shouldn’t be a problem.”

We walked up the stairs and turned the corner. Maria gently knocked on a door that had been covered in sparkling unicorn stickers.

“Albany?”

Silence. 

“Albany, the neighbor girl came over? Her name’s Julie and she’s in high school. She’s really sweet!” 

The door creaked open a bit. Just a bit.

I gently placed the carrots next to the crack in the door. 

There was hesitation, but a hand came out and grabbed the baggie.

I tried to look into the crack, but all I saw was a bunk bed and...more than a few notebooks.

“You wanna say hello?”

I small voice came out from inside. “Hi.”

“She’s going to come over every once in a while to make sure you’re doing okay.”

“Ok.”

I smiled. I felt like I really did identify with this weird, unknown child.

“Can I come in?”

Maria looked at me, shocked.

I saw a small eye through the crack. Deep green, like me. I put my eye to the crack so she could see.

I gently tried to pry open the door, and Albany let me through. 

She was a kind of pudgy, elementary-aged kid, with deep brown hair, denim overalls and pink shirt. Her room was covered in bulliten boards, art supplies, and notebooks. It felt...weird.

“You look my age.” She said, looking me over.

“Yeah.” I shrugged.

“You’re really in high school?”

“Yeah, I know, I look like - “

“I don’t like going to school now. Is it going to get better?”

I felt my brain shut off. A few tears began to grow in my eyes.

I hugged her for a bit.

 

Maria looked at me, arms crossed, 100% suprised. “Wow. She never does that.”

I shrugged. “I can be good with kids if I want.”

####  **Tuesday, August 27th**

I walked past two men removing a plaque and a picture from the trophy case with power drills on my way to P.E.. They put a framed picture of a muscular white dude with black, long hair that was emerging from the water, a ball in his hand. I looked up and saw that it was for the water polo team. Every picture was of this dude.

I stood and watched for a bit. They took apart every picture, every plaque. They took a giant trophy and placed it on their cart.

I think the dude’s name was Antonin.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Late chapter, I know. Blame finals. Sorry!  
> Speaking of lateness, later this month I'll be pretty much in vacation mode, with a trip to the Ozarks and Branson followed a week later with a trip to Kentucky. Neither will have wifi (or, at least, good wifi), so I'll try to find some way to get this updated in a timely manner.
> 
> [Discord!](https://discord.gg/wXWrqYb) Now would be a good time to join - for one thing, this Friday we'll be watching some shit Disney Channel Original Movies, and also because of the aforementioned possibles SNAFUs and maybe delays.


	33. Happy to Be Here

####  **Wednesday, August 28th**

 

Today was the first time we’d be working together in labs in science, though the day was mostly derailed when some girl in class complained about skipping breakfast. Mr. Morat stopped talking entirely just to look under his desk, pull out an entire box of candy bars, and hand it to the girl before returning to the lecture.

My lab partner was this dude that I sat next to, since we were the only people who didn’t already have partners in mind, or people who wanted to be our partners. I was used to it. Most of my old friends at Sherman were my lab partners that nobody else chose. 

This time, though, it was...weird. I don’t know. I didn’t know him. Honestly, he spent most of his time sitting in his desk and playing games on his phone. He never answered questions...well, not that I did, either. But I at least paid attention.

The assingment was basically just to calculate mass of different objects on scales. It was to get us used to the kind of scales that we used, which were the ones that you had to slide little things on bars until it was level. 

The thing was, though...this dude didn’t help at all. I didn’t want to mention it, but it was kind of annoying that he just sat on his stool and read some kind of comic book. I was getting frustrated, but...this was just the first day of lab. I guess he’d be more helpful later on.

 

While walking out of the classroom, I saw a thing that...bugged me. That black girl I kept seeing. Pris...something. She was with her entourage of mostly white, blond girls, poking and prodding at a small, white, nebbish-looking girl my height. They were laughing.

I felt my first ball up, but then I remembered how it started three years ago. I froze.

Eventually they left her alone. I walked away.

I hate myself.

 

####  **Thursday, August 29th**

I was woken up from my dedicated-napping-time Study Hall by someone prodding my back. My response was to bubble incoherently and swing my arms around until I knocked whoever it was back away.

“Hey.”

“Max? Huh?”

I looked up at him. They had a backpack over their shoulder, with an earbud dangling loose and a phone in their hand. I just now noticed that his phone was one of those ridiculously-expensive Lovelaces, not like my 2-generations-behind white enamel brick.

“You awake?”

I groaned and slumped back onto the desk.

“I went to leave and saw you.”

“Cool.”

He took the seat next to me. 

“I don’t know if I told you yet. I want to thank you for what you did.”

One of my eyes opened slightly.

“I’m sorry if I was ever mean to you. I’m just not used to new people. I don’t like them entering my life without my permission. That make sense?”

I nodded, kind of sympathizing.with them.

“I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t think you guys do. I’ve thought a bit about it. I think, no matter what happens, I’m going to stick with you three. I’m going to be a part of this.”

I propped my head on my arm.

They stood back up and pulled something out from their backpack. It was a long, cardboard food container.

“Lilli skimped on my offer to get a hotdog, so I thought I’d give it to you. Look like you deserve it.”

“Uh, thanks.”

“Don’t worry. I kept it warm in my lunchbox.”

I nodded, giving a more empathatic ‘thanks’, before my brain shot to my eyelids. The world became distilled - a billion colors, then twenty, than just two, purple and black. I heard that voice. 

Ｉ ａｍ Ｔｈｏｕ， ａｎｄ Ｔｈｏｕ ａｒｔ Ｉ

Ｔｈｏｕ ｈａｓ ｃｒｅａｔｅｄ ａ ｎｅｗ ｂｏｎｄ， ａ ｓｉｇｎ ｏｆ ｐｅａｃｅｆｕｌ ｑｕｉｅｔ ｉｎ ｔｈｉｓ ｒｅｓｔｌｅｓｓ ｗｏｒｌｄ．．．

Ｔｈｒｏｕｇｈ ｔｈｅ ｐｏｗｅｒ ｏｆ ｔｈｅ

Ｈａｎｇｅｄ Ｍａｎ Ａｒｃａｎａ， ｔｈｏｕ ａｒｔ ｏｎｅ ｓｔｅｐ ｃｌｏｓｅｒ ｔｏ ｅｎｄｉｎｇ ｔｈｅ ｎｉｇｈｔｍａｒｅ．

“Thanks, Max.”

“Don’t mention it.”

 

I rode home feeling a bit better. I reminded myself of my new job.

I rode to Albany’s house, coasting a bit in the breeze, and made sure to hitch my bike up near their fence. Before I had left Monday, Maria showed me that they kept a spare key underneath a plastic frog wearing a sombrero. Kind of cute.

Inside was dark and empty. I saw a pink backpack and two light-up shoes by the stairs, which meant someone was home. I kind of felt bad for her, being a latchkey kid, but I guess that I wouldn’t really mind it. It was nice being alone in the dark.

The kitchen had Albany’s food - a bag of turkey jerky, a juice box, and a bag of grapes. There was a note on the table, saying for me to give her whatever I could and stay as long as I wanted. There was also an envelope of cash, $19. Not bad.

I took the juicebox and jerky up the stairs and knocked on the door. 

“Albany?”

No answer.

“It’s Julie, uh, from Monday. You there?”

I heard shuffling.

“I have snacks.”

The door cracked a bit. I help out my hand, and she snatched the two things immediately.

“Why don’t you come downstairs? I got some more goodies down there.” Christ, I was sounding like my mom.

“No.”

She shut the door. I stared at a sparkly unicorn sticker for a bit.

I thought about leaving, but…

I went downstairs, got my backpack, dug out the box I got from Max, and cracked it open. It looked like a Chicago-style dog, and it still looked remarkeably preserved.

“Uh, Albany…” I said, putting on my best mom-voice. “I have a really good hot dog here...it’d be a shame to eat it alone…”

The door cracked a bit again.

“Dispel your lies, heretic. I shall not allow any cooked canines to enter my domain. Leave at once, or face the wrath of Shugut, divine destroyer.”

The door slammed in my face again.

I stood there for a second.

“What the fuck?!”

“No profanity, either!”

I felt my mind leaving my body, floating up into the cosmos and being burned by the sun. I almost collapsed. What the actual  _ fuck _ was that?

I left, confused and dazed and kind of...God. What the fuck is wrong with that kid?

####  **Friday, August 30th**

Two obligations in one day. It felt like a record. 

I walked down to the lobby, heart kind of beating. I didn’t know what golf really was, and I didn’t know if this girl was...alright. I think I only trusted one other girl here, I wasn’t sure if I was ready for another.

I turned the stairs and saw Carrie in the crowd. She was talking to a brunette girl with a volleyball jersey on - already bad news. Carrie said something, and the brunette girl pushed her aside and joined up with her friends. The one girl was there, too. Pri-something.

I gulped and slowly approached.

“Hey! Juliet, right?”

“J-Julie…” I murmured, then moved close. “What was that about?”

“Oh, that girl was hanging around me, I asked if she was going to join the Golf team, she called me a dyke and pushed me against the wall. Happens.”

I stood in shocked silence.

“Don’t worry, I’m resilient.” She laughed it off and edged her way through the crowd. I hurriedly followed suit.

“You sure you’re fine with that?”

She shrugged. “I’m kind of a minority. I don’t want to be a bad example.”

I almost felt like agreeing with her, but I didn’t...feel like talking about it. Plus, that kind of felt...I don’t know. Not the right way of saying it. But I wasn’t the kind of person to say she was wrong.

“Uh, I...I do wanna say, I don’t have, like, clubs.”

“No worries! I bought a pair for you.”

I looked at her. We were standing in the middle of the parking lot.

“Y-You bought a pair? You barely know me. That...that, I don’t know. Isn’t it weird?”

“It’s not. I was just spending club expenses.”

She approached an old, powder-blue truck, somewhat beat up and marked with rust. She pulled off a piece of paper taped to the hood, crumpled it up, and threw it to the wind before I could see it.

“You don’t mind me driving?”

“Nah, it’s fine.”

“You want front?”

I shrugged and climbed in.

The inside of Carrie’s car felt...I don’t know. Remarkably clean. The car was old, but it was pretty well-maintained. A lot better than Raul’s. 

She drove through the streets of Lydon. I felt awkward sitting there, but Carrie’s unfazeable smile was pretty disarming.

“You’re not from around here, are you?”

“No, no, I’m from...Kentucky. Tennessee, actually. Tennessee.”

“What brings you up here?”

I coughed. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“‘S’fair.”

We began driving on a road that neared the coast, then up towards a line of restaurants and shops build on what felt like the edge. There was a parking lot around them, but as near as I could see there was a single barricade, followed by a rocky outcropping, followed by the sea.

Carrie parked as far away from the shops as she could, got out, and pulled out two golf bags. One was child sized. I guess that one was mine.

“Why are we here?”

“Practice!”

I followed her. She looked remarkably suspicious, looking around, glancing towards noises, the back doors of the shops, other pedestrians. We had to sneak around a couple taking a selfie near the rocks.

“Sh, here,” she said, voice to a whisper, pointing to a ladder next to a dumpster. This felt...weird. But I didn’t want to be rude. Even if she was about to murder me.

I climbed up and gasped.

On top of the resturaunt was...kind of a little paradise. There was a box serving as a table, with two cushioned folding lawn chairs around it. On the opposite side was another table, a small, metal one made for a lawn, with a tin of golf balls on it. In the back was a cooler, a boombox with a tape deck and a CD player, another golf bag, and some lawn umbrellas next to holes drilled into the ground.

“Oh my God.”

“Nice, ain’t it?”

I climbed over the edge and allowed Carrie to follow suit. “Kinda made my own place here the past year or so. Got soda, balls, music...and…”

She gestured outward.

I saw the sea stretch on for miles. An endless expanse of lapping waves, with only an occasional white boat in the distance to break up the blue. I saw a large flock of seagulls cross in the cloudless sky, and the cool air began flowing into my hair and face. I had to hold it down.

“Nice, isn’t it?”

“Yeah...I could stay up here for a while.”

Carrie cracked open a bottle and handed it to me. I recognized it as that disgusting soda, though, so I declined. She shrugged, took a drink, and handed me a Bocoa Diet.

“So, what do you do up here?”

She placed a small tee into a hole in the ground by my fingers. I recoiled them away.

I watched Carrie place a ball on the tee, line up a shot, and drove the ball off the edge of the building. It flew into the sky, far away, and landed into the water several seconds later.

“Wow.” I said, marvelling at the distance.

“Yep!” She beamed at me, golf club over her shoulders. “I like to think I’m pretty good.”

I smiled again, a few weird giggles breaking out.

“Hey, and when you think about it, I’m doing the ocean a service,” she said, tossing me a ball. It was labeled ‘Aquagolf’, and it felt remarkably soft, yet still the same density of the golf ball.

“Each ball has a center of fish food, and it degrades after a few days.”

“Nice.”

“So, what do you think? Wanna take a few shots?”

“Not really, uh...not now, anyway…” I flexed the ball in my hand, and, not thinking, tossed it. It landed on the rocks, bounced off, and landed into the water with a soft ‘doink’ sound.

“No problem, I’ll get you into it soon.”

She raised her glass of Koffingston. “Welcome to the golf club!”

I don’t know why - maybe it was because I found someone like me. She was kind of cute, maybe older than me, but she was still...I don’t know. I felt calm for the first time. It was a nice place, it was relaxing...and I didn’t have to worry about any Persona or theaters...

I felt the same thing from yesterday - a huge feeling of rush in my brain, followed by the colors dissolving, shrinking, until the sky was black and the ocean was purple.

Ｉ ａｍ Ｔｈｏｕ， ａｎｄ Ｔｈｏｕ ａｒｔ Ｉ

Ｔｈｏｕ ｈａｓ ｃｒｅａｔｅｄ ａ ｎｅｗ ｂｏｎｄ， ａ ｓｉｇｎ ｏｆ ｐｅａｃｅｆｕｌ ｑｕｉｅｔ ｉｎ ｔｈｉｓ ｒｅｓｔｌｅｓｓ ｗｏｒｌｄ．．．

Ｔｈｒｏｕｇｈ ｔｈｅ ｐｏｗｅｒ ｏｆ ｔｈｅ

Ｔｈｅ Ｃｈａｒｉｏｔ  Ａｒｃａｎａ， ｔｈｏｕ ａｒｔ ｏｎｅ ｓｔｅｐ ｃｌｏｓｅｒ ｔｏ ｅｎｄｉｎｇ ｔｈｅ ｎｉｇｈｔｍａｒｅ．

Carrie clinked my can with her bottle. “See you next week?”

I let a few giggles out. “Sounds good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the short chapter, but...Finals. Finals. FIIINALS. fuck. Thankfully, I'll be able to push out more these next few weeks thanks to Summer, so we'll start moving at a quicker pace.
> 
> [Discord!](https://discord.gg/wXWrqYb) Some, uh...[neat](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/265197982410866689/443898852744101908/discord.png) things are happening. I heartily recommend you to join, even if you don't have an account and/or haven't commented or added kudos. If you like this fic, that's all you need to come on!


	34. Only Everyone Can Judge Me

####  **Saturday, August 31st**

It was a cloudy, kind of dark grey day. I spent most of the afternoon in the computer room with Rowan, watching him clean up that pyramid computer while listing stuff on his tablet. It was a slow day. I kind of wanted that after last week’s rollercoaster ride - though, I guess it ended on a good note.

I was playing more Age of Arisen on my NuGame, sitting against the wall. There was something burning in my gut, though. I kind of...I don’t know. I felt like prying. I felt like bothering.

“Rowan?”

“Yep?”

“Do you know people in the police?”

He turned towards me, kind of curious. “Yeah. Usually we’d have to reach out if any kind of divorce proceedings involve crime, or, like...sometimes we help defend kids accused of crimes…”

My eyes lit up. I was managing to pry into something I shouldn’t pry into.

“Uh, so…”

He eyed me.

“You know that...uh...kid?”

He slowly nodded. “Why?”

I kicked my legs up into the air, trying to seem...innocuous? Maybe?

“Julie, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I know.”

He looked to his side, like he was in middle school, making sure nobody saw him spread rumors.

“It’s...a weird situation. The DNA matched and everything, so the kid...the boy really did murder his friend. But...you know, from what I’ve heard, the kid isn’t...all there…”

I paused my game. 

“His eyes were like...according to my friend, they were glazed over and...pale,” He took off his own glasses and waved his hand in front of his eyes. “Nothing was there, right? And he was really...out of it.”

I stayed quiet.

“I’m...I’m saying too much, sorry…” He put back on his glasses and went back to tearing down the computer.

“Was he on drugs?”

“Apparently they looked for that. His parents were straight-edge, though. No alcohol, no drugs, nothing. The only thing weird was that the kid was getting narcoleptic. I don’t know, though. I think it’s best to watch the news and see what comes out of it.

####  **Sunday, September 1st**

I woke up to see the TV displaying static again. I tried to ignore it.

I couldn’t.

I slowly got up, limped over my bed, and climbed to my bean bag, sitting and watching the black and whtie flecks scatter themselves on the screen. 

Then it shut off, making a whining nosie, like the power had been cut off.

I touched the screen with my finger. It was warm, kind of like a body. The glass was like soft skin.

Then it burst like a membrane. Black blood flooded my room, drowning me, filling my lungs with thick and heavy darkness. I was crushed against the ceiling as I tried to fight back, but I eventually fell down into oblivion.

####  **Monday, September 2nd**

Science class was like it had been for the past few days. I did the lab work, the other dude (I think his name was Ray) read a book. I wouldn’t had minded as much if it wasn’t some kind of Japanese comic with...distracting imagery every few pages. That said, the plot was good, or, at least what I could read of it while I was  _ doing all the goddamn work myself _ . 

At lunch I kind of floated around. I wasn’t hungry. I felt like I didn’t get enough sleep, though. All of last night felt like...I don’t know. I sat on a bench and read stuff on my phone, eavesdropping in on a dude in a trenchcoat and a guy in an orange sweater. The trenchcoat dude was miming humping someone. I think he dropped some names I was familiar with, but I couldn’t place where. It did leave me disgusted, though.

When I got home I got a text from Rowan, saying he’d be able to drop me off and pick me up Friday, since he had a doctor’s appointment - regular checkup. I said that I already had a ride home Friday, but thanks. 

####  **Tuesday, September 3rd**

I woke up feeling kinda...I don’t know. I had a pep in my step that I never noticed before. I guess all that stuff from a few weeks ago kind of stopped mattering. I don’t know.

Raul put in the group chat to meet up in the lobby. He had been mentioning for a while that we needed to start organizing and coordinating just in case something happened. When I got to school, Lilli was sitting on an armchair in the corner, surrounded by four other chairs, boots propped up on the table.

“Uh, hey…”

She waved, but stopped mid-wave to yawn. Raul walked around the corner, carrying two canned coffees from the cafeteria, and passed one to Lilli.

“So, uh, this where we’re meeting up?”

“Yep. This place is pretty crowded in the mornings, so I think we can talk without worrying about eavesdropping.”

“Sounds...uh...ok.”

Raul cracked open his can, and turned towards Lilli, who was already fast asleep. “Of course, we’ll have to deal with...less than cooperative teammates.” He took his camera out of his bag, flipped up the flash thing, and held it in front of Lilli’s face, letting the light go off right in her eyes.

“Ah! Fuck!” She started waving her arms around, nearly knocking the camera out of Raul’s arms, but he quickly brought it back to his own chest. She went to rubbing her eyes. “Dammit, that hurt!”

“Rule 1 - No sleeping on the job.”

“Why are there rules now?”

[Raul put his finger to his lips](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwSvrvq9Quo). “I’ve just been thinking - I don’t think we’re through with this Persona stuff. I’ve been talking to my mom, and she says she treated that kid from elementary school that murdered the other boy.”

Lilli groaned. “And? I don’t wanna talk about that stuff.”

“Well, it’s just that his parents brought him in for random bouts of narcolepsy a few weeks before school started.”

I piped up. “The guy I’m staying with said the same thing.”

Both eyes turned towards me. 

“Uhm…” I fiddled with my index fingers. “My mom’s friend...I’m staying with him...I, uh...he’s a lawyer, and he has some...friends, uh, he knows some people on the police force...and that’s what he said. He was just...he was…”

“Hey, no worries.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Raul assured me. I felt myself shrink into the chair.

Max stepped into the circle of chairs just as I was looking pathetic. He was carrying a thermos.

Lilli stretched her eyelid, still kind of tired-looking. “About time, dude.”

Max lifted a finger. “Don’t talk to me until I’ve had my coffee.”

“But...don’t you hate coffee?”

Max turned to Raul, looked him in the eyes, and began to drink deeply from a water bottle.

“So, uh, anyway…” he continued. “I think that case and what we just did with Max are similar. Maybe that kid’s mind was accessible through the theater as well, if we had access to it.”

“You’re talking about that child-on-child violence?” Max asked.

Raul nodded. “Maybe something similar would’ve happened if we didn’t rescue you in time.”

“I could think of a few people I’d want to beat with a tree branch.”

“Don’t joke about that shit,” Lilli groaned. “This is serious, you dick.”

“Maybe if we had more, uh…” I rubbed my thumb with my index finger, trying to think of what I was thinking of. “Maybe if we knew more about what was going through that one boy’s mind...maybe that would...uh…”

“I think you’re onto something…” Raul nodded. “Oh, speaking of you...do you think you could stop by that airsoft store today? I meant to give you some cash, but I got tied up with my Junior Ranger troupe.”

“Why are you sending her to that airsoft store?” Max looked at me, but less accusatory than he had been the past few days.

“While we were, like, screwing around in your brain…”

“Phrasing.” Max interjected.

Lilli groaned. “Apparently airsoft guns work like the real shit inside minds. We wanna test it out.”

“You some kind of gun fan?” Max said.

I weakly raised my hand. “Guilty as charged…”

He took out a pad of paper from his backpack, wrote something on it with a pen attached to the case, and handed it from me. It was a personalized, white check, with everything filled out but the memo and the amount. He literally handed me a blank check.

“What the-”

“Go crazy, as long as it’s not over $500.”

“Uh! Uh! Okay…” I softly folded it and placed the paper in my pocket. It felt like a weight. 

Max looked at the two other people at the table, shrugged, and wrote two more checks. “Raul can grab medicine. What can you source?”

Lilli looked over the check, smirk on her face. “I can grab close-range shit. Clubs and stuff.”

“Uh...I like that, uh, batons...the clubs…” I mimed the retractable baton that she gave me a while back.”

“I’m getting used to handling those machetes.”

Max scratched the back of his head. “I went to fencing camp for a summer. See what you can do.”

“Oh!” I jumped in my seat. “What about guns?”

Lilli looked up at the ceiling and thought. “Something, like, maybe a SMG or some shit.”

“I never thought about that…” Raul thought. “I guess I’ll just leave it up to you.”

Max shrugged. “Same. I don’t know what it’s going to be like in there.”

“Uh...ok. I, I think I can deal with that…”

“We should do it tomorrow,” Raul suggested. “Meet in front of the Theater at 3, I’ll put everything in the trunk of my car.”

“Why not put it in there? Doesn’t that shit stay?” Lilli asked.

“Well, I...uh…no offense, but I don’t trust Sam with a bunch of weapons.”

####  **Wednesday, September 4th**

I found the airsoft shop after doing a quick search. It was hidden in a weird shopping district, somewhat walled off, taking up an entire block of the city. It was lined with shops, with a fountain in the center, a brick street that radiated off the fountain, and benches. I guess this was more of a luxury place.

The shop was called...[Plinkshop](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhSVwcRcMIk). Not exactly creative. It advertised itself mainly as a skateboard and ‘sport’ store, but I immediately noticed the huge wall of airsoft guns in the far back while looking through the window. I almost started salivating - it was so huge!

The blank check still felt like a weight in my pocket. I was anxious to actually...use it. I was holding more money than I’ve ever felt in my life.

I walked in, trying to act cool, but my eyes kept flitting over to the wall, eying it like a tall, leggy blonde at a party. Most of them were made with real metal, polymers...I saw some rare guns, like the French ‘Trumpeter’ MCH-3L assault rifle, capable of firing over 1000 RPM in real life, a huge, slightly modified Chimera pistol - one of the only handguns capable of firing .50 AE - oh man, oh man…

I had already decided on a sniper rifle for Raul - maybe an obrez just to keep it concealable - and something steady and easy to use like a lever-action for Max. Maybe he could shorten it to a Mare’s Leg? Man! This felt so cool, like I was in a crime movie…

I walked up to the counter. The teen behind it was reading some gaming magazine - one of the weird bad ones, now that I noticed it. I shortly browsed, settling on a better copy of the Fernetti MF1 I had now - not that I wanted to dual weild them or anything, since...that’s bad...or...something. For Lilli, I picked a DON-20 with a larger-than-average magazine, and an additional compensator for better accuracy control. Raul would get a Barbarossa rifle with a foldable skeleton stock and adjustable scope. Max got a Lil’ Annie Oakley model BB rifle, one with leather tassels on the stock and an easily-manipulated lever. 

The teen looked at me as I rounded off my selections.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

He put down his magazine, and I quickly learned he was an idiot. I had to point to the ones I wanted on the wall, had to specify how the Barbarossa’s stock folded so he could put it in the box, and I had to slowly recite the exact kind of Fernetti I wanted out of the seven or so behind the counter. 

“Really particular, huh, kid?”

I eyed him as he placed everything in a cardboard box, adding up the totals on the computer. 

“What’s this for, like, your big brother’s birthday? Did he give you a list?”

I stared at him. “I’d also like a V-MORE sight with interchangeable red-dot optic pack, and four flashlights for Bercett rail systems, preferably ProTek brand, and a Bercett Rail adapter set.”

He looked at me weirdly as he went around to the accessory section, picked up what I wanted - after rooting through it for, like, 30 seconds, and returned, spitefully cramming them in the box.”

“Really particular, huh?”

I filled out the check, gave it to him, and took the box in my tiny hands.

“I know more than you.”

I walked out.

 

We met right in front of the cafe. I swore I saw...something in the windows, but I didn’t mention it. Something tall, muscular, with blonde hair. But it was impossible.

“What’cha got?” Lilli asked, trying to take the box from me.

“Might, uh, might not be a good idea to wave these around in public.”

She nodded. “Good idea.”

“I did take pictures!” I said, kind of happy, pleased with myself...confidant, for some reason. I let everyone huddle around my phone as I proudly infodumped about what I had gotten, why, what kind of benefits they gave, and how to use them. I also showed the flashlights - since I think I could take those out of the box without a lot of fuss - and the sight.

“Wow.” Raul said, a bit surprised. “Good job.”

I blushed. “It’s, it was nothing, really.”

“What about on the melee end?” Max asked Lilli.

“Uh…” Lilli looked inside the bags she was holding. “Raul, got you a hatchet, got Julie a better baton - steel tipped and all that, and got Max a…” she pulled a long box out. “Whatever this thing is.”

Max looked it over. “This is a lawn decoration.”

I glanced over his shoulder. It...was. It was wrought iron - some kind of twisted square pike with a sharpened edge, a cylindrical thing at the top, capped off with what I guess was a socket to hold a light. The cylinder was probably a battery pack.”

“Hey, sorry, best I could do.”

“It’ll still work. Just hope we’re not fighting people strong to tastelessness.”

Lilli kicked Max in the shins.

 

####  **Thursday, September 4th**

I walked with a bigger pep in my step than I had been. I felt great! I was being a good friend, I was doing some fun things...I was even meeting people! 

The day went by quickly - the fact that Albany had already eaten her food when I got to her house. I pocketed the $15 - and a package of organic cookies Maria had noted was for me.

I sat on the steps outside her house in the nice late-summer air, listening to boat bells and seagulls, eating somewhat grainy but still delicious chocolate creme cookies. I looked at Rowans house and saw a small rock outcropping near the sidewalk that I never saw before.

Ever since I gained Puck, I’ve been thinking about gardening. Maybe knowing more about plant life and vegetables would give me more ideas for attacks and defense - not just limited to wood and vines. I think that little spot would be a good place to start - provided I could get it started before winter rolled in. I should think about it.

####  **Friday, September 5th**

I was still pretty happy. My skin was a lot clearer, or, at least I felt that way. I was humming to myself - I never hummed! Nothing could bring me down.

That feeling didn’t last long at all.

I was walking to math class when I was met in the stairwell by a group of girls blocking the shortcut between halls. They were talking about something, using their phones - maybe coordinating a party this weekend? I don’t know. I noticed one or two - including that one black girl. I guess this was her clique.

I looked around for a way to move around, but there wasn’t one. The only other way around was to walk in a giant C, which would make me late, thanks to my little legs.

I gulped. My stomach drained.

“Uh, excuse…”

One of them - the one with the rose-gold Lovelace, glared at me.

“Sorry, we’re busy.”

“No, I…” I placed a wedged hand near her stomach. “I kind of...need to go through…”

“Well, walk.”

One of them - the volleyball girl that was harassing Carrie last Friday - shot another look right at me. I felt my own eyes go wide. “Yeah, can’t you see we’re in the middle of something?”

“God, people are so rude.”

Pri-something looked at me. She went contemplative, then glanced away.  

“Hey, what’s your name, huh?”

I felt my body go cold. 

“Hey, say something.”

Another girl, white with studded earrings, smirked at me. “Oh my God, where are you from? You sound like a hick.”

“I-I’m not…” I stuttered, feeling my accent leak out. “I’m...I’m from...I’m from Tennessee…”

“Look at that sweatshirt. You look like you crawled right out of some trailer park.”

“No, black people don’t live in trailer parks.”

I swiftly noticed that me and Priscilla were the only women of color in the situation. I was about dead.

“Do you think it’s like a teen movie situation with her? She takes off her sweatshirt and she has double-D’s hidden underneath there?”

“No, she’s just like that. I think her cousins like it that way.”

One of them giggled. “Yeah, it’s all ‘love you uncle daddy’ down there, isn’t it?” She glanced at me. “Hey, what’s it like?”

I felt tears begin to grow in my eyes, My cheeks were hot. My fingers were twitching, and I felt like I was tearing holes in my skin with my wringing.

“C’mon, what’s it like down there? Just country music and cousin fucking?”

“God, I think I’d rather take the cousins.”

“Oh, you’re one to talk, ‘my cousin’s captain of swim team.’”

“Ha! You’re  _ such _ a bitch!”

I tried to back away, but one of them grabbed my arm. I went into overdrive. I was close to bawling, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I was frozen. I felt everything in my body at once, my heart beating and my throat warbling, and it all felt too familiar.

“Oh, fuck, we’re just joking. Answer a question.” she jiggled my arm. 

“Hey, Priscilla, can’t you speak her language?”

She snapped back. “Excuse me? And what’s that supposed to mean, Brit?”

“Oh, I’m just messing with you.”

“Let’s just let her go. Look at her.”

I felt the air around me grow heavy. I didn’t know what to do.

“Fuck it, fine. C’mon.” the girl holding my arm threw me forward, into the center of the group, and I took off running. I...God! I knew this would happen! I fucking knew it! 

I’m just a fucking magnet for this shit. I can’t...I can’t get a break anywhere. I’m...I’m so sick of this. I’m so sick of everything…

My mind went blank for half a second. I was crying in the stall of a bathroom. I heard my phone buzz but I didn’t answer it. Nobody came. I was alone. I wanted to be alone forever.

 

####  **Saturday, September 6th**

I didn’t wake up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for that last bit. I have no idea how popular girls talk. I'm not sorry for any other part of that situation.
> 
> Also, this chapter is a bit late, but I was binging this kind of obscure anime called Boku no Hero Academia. Maybe you've heard of it? I don't know. It did get me thinking about...things. Things that I had to work on immediately. To be honest, I kind of want to try doing something optimistic, since both this one and my DanganRonpa fic can take a lot out of me, depending on what I write. I do want to write something...I don't know. Heroic. Stay tuned for updates on that.
> 
> [Discord!](https://discord.gg/wXWrqYb) I have a trip to the Ozarks coming up starting tomorrow - check the channel out if you want pictures of that!


	35. BONUS - Sometimes, Things Just Don't Work Out

I swear to God, if this Persona stuff didn’t kill me first, Lilli would.

I never knew her that well until I moved in with my brother into the half-a-double. Of course, I knew  _ of _ her, but not  _ her _ . If the rumors were to be believed, she was the knife wielding femme fatale that haunted the alleys of the school after dark. She was the angry feminist that wanted to kill all men. She was the dumb Chinese girl that barely knew English and kept slurring her R’s and L’s.

In reality, she’s just a prick.

Our relationship got off to a rocky start - she banged on the door to the house when I was home alone and asked for some milk. It was the first time I saw her outside of school - I just kind of assumed she lived in the boiler room and ate rats - so it was weird talking to her in the summer, outside of school, dressed in shorts and a tank top rather than her barely-trying-to-pass-school-regulations outfit she usually wore.

From there, she started to come over more often, asking about homework, paying me to write essays, asking me about stuff that didn’t matter and I didn’t know. It slowly dawned on me that I was the only person she really knew. Of course, she had  _ other _ friends, or, at least I saw her talking to them outside of school and at lunch, but by the time the Freshman summer break began, her group had dwindled to just her harassing people for their chairs or money.

_ The Dragon of Scarlet Street, the lady of Shanghai - the real fallen angel in this rain-slicked hellscape of a city. I met her twice, once when she was loaded, and again when I was. By our third meeting, I had made two new friends, both 45s, and I was ready to introduce them to her once I realized the rest of her gang of killers left her, and she lived in a lonely place. _

Over time, especially once school started, I realized she was just kind of using me. I wasn’t sure why, or how, but it felt like a one-sided relationship. I started hanging out with her, mostly out of pity, but then it was just kind of me paying for food and her laughing at me. Once I bought my car with lifeguard and photo money, she immediately began using it as a place to sleep if she needed to go to school early. I compromised by saying that she couldn’t keep her own clothes in there, and had to change into what I had for her - which, inevitably, were pastel polos and khakis.

Then junior year hit. Julie came to town. Our relationship softened almost immediately, and I guess I could thank her for that.

She still used my car as her bedroom, though, and the polo rule stayed.

_ I shouldn’t be surprised when she came into my office, a woman on the run from her sick past, still holding a bloody cleaver wet from acts of violence. I was packing the hidden third man in our disagreement, the big combo that would let this trouble sleep.  _

“Fuck, dude. Can’t we skip the rule?”

I held out the pink shirt. “You wanna wear that to school?” I gestured to ther choice of sleepwear - a baggy white t-shirt and lack of pants. She looked at her thighs, grumbled something about forgetting, and snatched the khakis from my hand. 

“Buckle up.”

She groaned, flailing inside her shirt as she was taking it off. 

“What’s that?”

“I ain’t buckling up until I get dressed,” she patted her bra. “Seatbelt probably has...like, ticks from the fucking Japanese occupation on it…”

“What?”

“你又冇大腦?”

I backed up right over the speed bump over the driveway. 

“Hey!”

I just laughed as I drove to school. 

_ Once the dragon fell, I thought that was the end of it, but the forces of evil had other plans. She walked into my life with legs for minutes, the name of danger, and carved a path of darkness through Hell straight to my office. It was too late for tears for her, but she wanted to make sure she never cried again.  _

Julie thrust another VHS tape into my hands the moment she saw me. It was passing period during fourth and fifth. She looked like she had just seen a ghost, and kept her head down to the ground. I didn't see her during the morning breakfast period - now that I thought about it, she wasn't in the group message, either. 

“Here.”

I looked at it closely - no label or anything. “This another of those clown shows?”

“Yeah,” she looked away, and began leaning closer to the wall. “It’s...you, you can keep that one…”

“What was on it?”

Her face grew sunken and shallow, like someone who had already given up, and she began curling up. “I...I don’t want to...just, just take it. Don’t watch it.”

I twisted the plastic casing a bit, like the tape housed a great evil on the verge of breaking free.

“You know, I’ve been thinking about these…” 

She gently looked in my direction.

“You said they were filmed in Lydon?”

She shrugged, an awkward grimace in her face.

“You want to find where these come from?”

Her face became struck with worry and apprehension. A fear of some sort of unknown, the fear of possibly fear itself. “Uh, no, no, I’m good. I...I really, I really don’t want to pry…”

“I think I know where these are coming from. Think it’d help your fears?”

“I…” she began rubbing her neck, scratching at it, while her free hang was wringing the inside of her shirt. Her hands were  _ always _ doing something. “Raul, I think...I think there’s something wrong with…”

She froze as a group of girls passed. Priscilla Hultuist, who looked nothing like I remembered in middle school, and her clique of polo-wearing boys and flashy girls.

“Julie?”

“I...I don’t know. I...I’m fine. I’ll just go home tonight…”

“Alright,” I put the tape in my camera bag just as the bell rang. “I’m gonna be hanging a bit after school, anyway. If you want.”

She looked at the hallway and gave a heavy, scratchy sigh. “Okay. I’ll think about it.”

_ It was a simple job, just another work of brutal force for this gun for hire. Taking down a piece of film of the Dragon Lady, requrested by the third man in this operation. The girl as short as her fuse was long. I knew as I navigated that dark alley, finding the secret beyond that door that this web was more than the work of two spiders. _

Julie came through, sitting on my car by the time I came around. She was still looking pretty despondent, and I started feeling bad about pressuring her into this. Then again, though, I wasn’t trying to rope her into some grand scheme or muckraking opportunity - even though I knew the kids that read the high school paper would love some mysterious story about this clown show, especially around Halloween. I was just going to go to the local news studio - one of the few buildings allowed to break the 3-story-maximum building requirement, though it still had the shortest radio transmitter in all of Massachussets, and ask about the show. They’d probably say no, I’d shrug and say something about ‘oh well’, and I’d treat her to ice cream. I knew something was on her mind, and I figured she’d at least find some solace in eating concrete while in my car.

“Hi!”

She nodded.

“So, I figured we’d just stop by the local news station and ask about the tape. If anything’s able to broadcast around the island, it’d be from there.”

“Raul, I...I, I really don’t think this is...manmade…”

“How so?”

She bent her head down and covered her hair. “It’s...I…” she just shook her head. “Let’s just go…”

We got in my car, and I insisted on her riding front right next to me - mostly because of Lilli’s pillow and t-shirt in the back. She didn’t even mention it.

I started to explain to her the TV station’s history, the shortwave radio station, all that stuff. I didn’t really want to, like, bug her about it, but I figured white noise would help her stop worrying. But, y’know, I didn’t know anything about anxiety, depression, whatever it was she was going through. It was all blind guesses, and I noticed at some point that I was doing more harm than good once she begna looking out the window, so I shut up.

“We’re here.”

“Uh…” she gently tapped my finger. “Can...can you...not bring in the tape? I...I don’t want...can you not talk about it with whoever?”

“I won’t name specifics - if I start getting too accurate, I’ll look like whoever’s hacking the airwaves if it’s not an inside job. I’ll just ask about the clown show.”

“I...okay. Okay.”

We walked in slowly, making sure I wasn’t outpacing her, and walked up to the main receptionist’s desk. I motioned to the woman behind the counter, seeing if she wanted to ask, but Julie just shook her head.

“Uh, hi, my name’s Raul, and this is my friend,” I said, stepping forward a bit and letting her shrink behind me. “We were wondering if you had any information about this new clown show that’s airing at…”

“Midnight…” she filled in.

“Yeah. Is it a new part of your programming?”

The woman shook her head. “We’ve gotten complaints about it, and we don’t know what’s going on with it at all.”

So it was a hack.

“We’ve already gotten about seven calls from people named Julie in our broadcast area. Would you like to file a formal complaint with us?”

Julie took a gulp of air and wrapped her sleeves around her mouth, like a baby turtle. My mind began cranking almost immediately.

“Julie?”

“Yeah, mostly some college students and mothers on the island, but we really don’t know what’s going on - and what was shown absolutely is  _ not _ up to our standards at WXCI. Do you want to talk to our programming manager?”

Julie was rocking in her torso. I realized I needed to go ASAP. “No thanks, but I appreciate your time.”

I gently touched the small of her back, waiting to see if it freaked her out even more, and when she just began to shiver I began leading her out. 

By the time we cleared the glass doors, she was nearly crying.

“Julie? Hey, is…”

“That tape…” she began shivering more and more, nearly doubling over on her waist. I think I knew what was going on, but I didn’t want to try helping. I just wanted to make sure she was safe.

I put my arm on her shoulder, but she just recoiled away, a look of shock on her face, before deflating. “I’m...get rid of it...get rid of it...I don’t want to see it, people saw it...people…”

“People saw…” I almost asked, but I shut my mouth before it even cleared it. “Hey, c’mon, I’ll drive you home.”

“I’m sorry…” she sputtered, wiping her tears with sleeves. “I...it’s…”

“It’s my fault more than anything. I should’ve figured you don’t want to mess with this.”

She looked back at me.

I didn’t have a response.

Man, dammit.

“I don’t know what’s on this, but the way you were acting, man, I should’ve left it alone.” God dammit, Raul. God... _ dammit _ . 

Learn to start picking your battles.

I took her to the coastline, near a bait shop, and let her throw the tape into the ocean before driving her home. My heart felt like I had shot it point blank with something. 

Stop digging, Raul. Stop trying to find this stuff. Don’t end up like her.

_ The asphalt jungle was still thirsty, and the rain wasn’t cutting it anymore. I saw the small girl’s blood drain into the depths below, holding both her gun and mine. The Dragon had run off, the film was burned, and I was the only loose end left. I mad eme a fugi tig fkgowehnlweggnl FUCK FUCK GIOENWWG _

_ Shit stop doing this oh my god you fucking moron you can’t write for shit you just need to stop gufk fuck fuck  _

I felt my hot hand, hurting like a mothefucker after I had punched the keyboard. 

It was 11. I was still up. I needed to finish this for no reason, and I didn’t want to. I just…

I can’t stop. I can’t stop.

My eyes flitted over to the portrait on my computer desk. My glasses were on my nightstand, and I didn’t have any effort left in my body to get up and grab them.

I picked up the picture and let my eyes focus on it.

Aunt Rosa. Last picture I had of her - the one I took with the camera she just gave me. Sitting on the hood of the car right before she left for the Koreas on that last assignment.

“There’s a world across the ocean, little man. It’s bigger than anything you’ve ever seen, and it’s full of all these friendly people that you just have to go and see. Promise me you’ll find them, right?”

I mouthed those words again and again to myself. It was the last letter she sent me.

I opened up a new document, wiped the tears away, and started writing again.

_ Dear Rosa, _

_ I know you’ll never get this, but I still miss you.  _

_ I still remember that you liked mysteries, and I really have a big one for you. I think, considering what I’ve been through, and what I know of it, you’ll find it somehow.  _

_ I’ll let you know more information soon. I’m still digging, even though nobody wants me too, but I think I can’t let this one go. There’s too many loose ends, and I’m starting to feel like one of those detectives caught in the middle. I don’t have a lot of leads - and I think I’ve gotten rid of the few I have - but things are really just picking up. _

_ I’ll keep you updated, though I think you already know. You always liked it when I discovered the culprit in the first few scenes of the movie, so I think you’ll be really, really proud of me this time. _

_ Your assistant,  _

_ Raul _

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a pre-written chapter I had ready to go in case of emergencies, and I'm glad I was able to drop this with minimal editing, right in the middle of a Act transition, too!  
> I hope people like this, since I have one written for every member of the party (minus Julie, of course). It's going to be, essentially, one character with another party member serving as an additional supporting character, and it goes in a pretty nice circle. Hope everyone enjoys!  
> Also, I think after next chapter, I'll be taking a 3 week-or-so hiatus just to catch up on some commissions, real life stuff, etc. It might change, and I might not go ahead with it, but just a quick heads-up.  
> [Discord!](https://discord.gg/wXWrqYb) Remember that this is the best way to get a hold of me nowadays, outside of straight AO3 comments, esp. when it comes to criticisms or suggestions. Everyone's able to join, even if you don't have an account or haven't kudos'd or bookmark'd.


	36. Someone Has To Die

####  **Tuesday, September 9th**

I walked out of Rowan’s house in the early morning, my head feeling like it was weighed down with cinderblocks chained to my neck. The past few days - weeks, maybe - took the wind out of me and left me feeling...empty. My entire body felt hollow, hurting, struggling to keep itself all together - and it really did feel like it was about to collapse.

I wheeled my bike out to the sidewalk, pausing right by the rocky outcropping I saw a few days ago. It was relatively flat, sticking out of the hill that our house sat on, covered in grass. I touched the soil briefly, making sure it wasn’t too rocky or was actually just gravel. For a second, I saw rose bushes and vines cover the stones, sprouting out of the soil and growing several feet in a matter of moments.

My hand recoiled away.

I...I guess I better get used to living with a fairy inside of me.

 

I got to my first period still feeling a bit...shit. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw what I saw Monday morning. I remembered that...adventure I had with Raul.

I hope he didn’t hate me after freaking out.

“Ah! There you are, my little _gumman_!”

Ms. Signe hugged me from behind as I walked through the door.

“Good news, good news! Applications for AP testing have begun! What is your availability after school?”

I felt my cheeks grow red.

“Uh...it’s...variable…”

“Okay, okay! No worries!” She twisted me around. “So, we will meet in the library Wednesdays. Okay? The tests will be hard, so we have to work together.”

I nodded.

“Tests will be last week of October, last day of the quarter. Then I can transfer you! Oh, be sure to talk to your counselor, OK? I saw you have an IEP.”

I glanced towards the classroom. There were a few kids already in there - all looking at me.

“Uh...ok. Next Wendesday.”

“Perfect!”

 

####  **Wednesday, September 10th**

I sat with Lilli on the bench of P.E. One of the subs was sick, so we had to do some kind of variant of dodgeball with squishy tennis balls. Both of us had coordinated to get out.

Lilli was watching a girl run across the field, knocking out people left and right. I recognized her as Volleyball Girl from that one group.

“You hear about the party?”

“No?” I folded up my legs and sat on the bench. “I...I didn’t think you guys had parties so early…”

“It’s, like, usually in the summer, I guess…” she shook her head. “Usually when their parents are away and they have the houses to themselves…”

“Who’s party is it?”

She pointed to the Volleyball Girl. “Sidney Whothefuckcares’ birthday. Gonna be at...some girl’s house. I don’t know.”

“Why not her house?”

“Dad’s already throwing her a birthday, she wants to have, fuck, I don’t know, a ‘cool’ one. Max’d probably know more about it. They’re invited.”

“They invited Max?”

“Probably a pity one.”

“I...see…”

I looked down at the wood floor of the gym.

“You doin’ okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I quickly nodded.

“You know, like…” she looked to the gym teacher a couple feet next to us. “Y’know, I’ve been...feelin’ weird. Hippolyta, I think...like…” She flicked her fingers. Something sparked in her eyes. “Man. Gotta talk to...that one dude. What’s his name?”

I paused, trying to think of it myself. “Carter, I think…”

“Yeah…”

 

We went back and changed once class was over. I had noticed that Lilli was essentially carving a path through the crowd of girls.

Honestly, I kind of liked hanging around her, especially in crowds. I liked the weird solace that she brought. Though, honestly, I was kind of curious about what people thought about the two of us.

We walked out of the locker room and prepared to go our seperate ways.

“Hey, Lilli!”

She froze.

We both turned around to see a clean-cute white dude in dockers approach us.

“You hear about the party, huh?”

She just looked at him.

“So, Priscilla’s the one handing out the invites, and she said I could bring a plus one…” He took out a pink piece of construction paper, with black cursive writing on the front. “Sure Sindey’d love to see you?”

“The fuck are you getting at?”

The kid smirked. I stepped away. “C’mon, don’t you want to give things one more shot? I know things didn’t work out before.”

The dude put out a hand. Lilli looked at it once, then grabbed his wrist, twisted it towards the wall, and took the invitation with her other. He yelped in pain.

“Ow! Hey!”

She looked over the paper, hand still on his wrist.

“You still spreadin’ rumors about us, huh?”

“Bitch! Give it back!”

“Why?”

She folded it in half.

“Fucking...come on! I need it!”

“Promise to shut the fuck up, then!”

“I...I promise!”

Lilli twisted the dude’s wrist even tighter, then pushed it towards him. I think I heard something snap. His face turned cherry red.

“Fuck...alright, alright, can I...”

She folded it again and again, then tore it into tiny little pieces, before stuffing it all into her pants pocket.

“Get a cure for that fuckin’ yellow fever, asshole.” She tapped me on the shoulder, and the two of us left. I gave him a thumbs up before I turned the corner.

 

####  **Thursday, September 11th**

I sat quietly in my classes, like normal, but throughout the day I realized that most everyone was talking about the party. This was a tiny school already, so it was feeling like most everyone was going to be there. Friday, I think.

I was fine not going. Parties were scary enough already. Nowadays, I didn’t know what was real.

By the time I was halfway home, it had began to slowly drizzle. I picked up the pace and managed to bike to Albany’s house in half the time.

On the table was an empty bottle of juice, a box of crumbs, $15, and a small package of beef sticks - helpfully labeled FOR JULIE. I should probably go to the grocery she runs, it looks good.

There was something else on the table, though - a composition notebook and a few pens.

It had ‘Albany’ written on the front.

I failed to resist the urge to be a nosey piece of shit.

I sat down, cracked open the box of meat sticks, and began leafing through the book.

It was amazing.

The first page was a drawing of a map, color-coded for nations with different landmarks, natural features, etc. noted with pen. The next pages were the same map, but with different markings...regions, biomes, towns, roads, highways…

It went on. There were drawings of flora, fauna, sketches of princess and kings, rogues, heroes, adventurers, flamboyant swords and brutal axes. It was all done on a high-school level - not professional, but certainly fantastic.

“Hey!”

I snapped the book shut. Albany was standing in the hallway, fists balled up, trembling.

“Cur!”

She snatched the book out of my hand. Tears were in her eyes.

“Didn’t anyone tell you not to go through people’s stuff?” She smacked me on the head with the book. “Go away! I hate you!”

She stormed up the stairs again.

I sat there for a while in shock before I followed her command and left. I was...more amused than anything. I had already been through enough shit this week. A grade schooler yelling at me for finding her - quite frankly - great drawings was more funny than annoying.

I made another stop at the rocky outcropping as I rushed in. There was a small rosebud that dissapeared when I blinked.

Once I got inside, I did somethings I had been meaning to do - cut the power cord to the television, put some small bits of my own hair on the ground to look like mice, then opened up my laptop and ordered some rosebush seeds.

I got a text. One of many the past week from Carrie.

**Golf club’s canceled :(**

**How you doing?**

My entire conversation this past few days with her was just a bunch of supportive messages from her, mostly about why I wasn’t at golf club, asking if everything was okay, and offering to take me out for ‘girl talk’.

**Im fine thank you**

**Yay!** **  
** **This week’s gonna get some rain, though. No Golf Club.**

**That sucks**

**Yeah! I ws hoping to see you.**

**Ill see you next week ok?**

**Sounds good!**

 

####  **Friday, September 12th**

Priscilla Hultuist carefully navigated the halls of her house, now filled with teenagers and college students. She was, in all honesty, amazed that Sidney knew this many people. She avoided knocking over the pile of presents on her coffee table, skipped past Daniel, who had already tried to pinch her ass twice, and took one of her father’s awards away from a touchy-feely girl with bloodshot eyes.

“Sidney?”

“Huh?” She twisted towards Priscilla, cheeks a little flushed. She had an empty red cup in her hand.

“You...you invited this many people?”

“I...don’t think so?” She lazily glanced across the room. “I think it’s just a lotta plus ones.”

“That…” Priscilla sighed. “That makes sense.”

“Don’t worry!” She giggled. “Volleyball team’s coming tomorrow to clean up.”

“That’s fine.”

Priscilla glanced around at the mess of people. She and her friends had tired to coordinate everything as best they could - game room was for marijuana, living room was just for drinking and socializing, kitchen for food, parlor for hook ups, everything upstairs was ‘fair game’, except for Priscilla’s room. She had extra sheets, pillows, couch covers, more wine coolers, and just about everything she could’ve needed. Of course, it all came out of her bank account. And, of course, if the couple making out on her favorite loveseat and the...occupation of the bathroom was any indication, rules were already being broken.

“Is that for me?” Sidney reached for the gold statue in Priscilla’s hand, but she yanked it away.

“Where’s my drink?” Priscilla looked around for the forest green cup of rasberry wine she had reserved for herself, and gagged when someone put it back down in front of her, half empty.

“Mike!” Sidney slapped her boyfriend’s rear end. “That was Pri’s!”

“Yes, Mike.” Priscilla snatched the cup from the table, and went around to the kitchen to get a refill. She was having fun up until this point - being able to choose the music helped, and she did like most of the people here, but her night was starting to turn sour.

She dumped the cup in the trash, picked a new one from the cupboard, and filled it with whatever was left of the bottle that she reserved for herself. A guy with stubbe ‘accidentally’ bumped her in the back. She grimaced, but left quickly.

The patio was filled. Dammit. So was the living room. Sidney was loudly announcing ‘presents time’, and Mike went out to her car to grab the cake.

Priscilla gulped down half of her drink and went out to her join her friend, but something stopped her in the doorway.

It felt like something had pierced her skull from behind, a jab in the back from an invisible force. Her brain became filled with thoughts of...thoughts off..

The world turned into a landscape of floursecent lights and lines of neon for a split second. She saw her drawings crawl out of the walls, calliope music.

Then it went normal. She felt sweat on her brow. She took another drink.

Her eyes were growing heavy, and something was rising from her gut. She took another unsteady step forward, but came face-to-face with a twitching, uneasy smile. It wasn’t there.

Hearts of black. Stinging blades. Laughter, merriment, her in the center, invisible.

[She was going crazy](https://youtu.be/4MTGQZiPkL8).

Priscilla slowly climbed the stairs, ignoring the festivities. Her hand was trembling. Did someone put something in...no. She just got it. Her head became heavy, and every step made her feel like she was going to tumble down.

The hallway upstairs stretched into infinity. At the end was a spinning grinder.

Priscilla slowly stumbled forwards, slipping on the carpet. Her cup spilled onto the floor, followed by a few trickles of black. She limped towards the bathroom door. She was damp with sweat and tears.

She looked at herself in the mirror. Her nose was bleeding something black. Her left eye was twitching rapidly. Her face melted into nothing, revealing a face of silver beneath. Her hair grew into long, green flowing locks before it all cracked, showing her face marred by scars, boils, leaking black and twitching muscles. Her mouth was stitched shut.

Priscilla pulled herself away, feeling the bile in her stomach rise. She vomited black over the bath.

She fell. Her skull collided with the handle of the bathroom door.

 

She woke up and saw a ferris wheel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are happening! Woo! 
> 
> Speaking of things happening, we still have the [Discord](https://discord.gg/wXWrqYb) server that's open to all that read and enjoy this fic, but I also uploaded the first chapter of my new Boku No Hero Academia fic, [We Are Finally Heroes!!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14824487/chapters/34306640), after a while of working on it. Check it out if you want!


	37. Narcoleptic

**Saturday, September 13th**

Today was one of those days where I just consigned myself to staying in bed. I wasn’t particularly sad – I just felt like not showing my face to the world for a few hours.

I got a text from Maria, Albany’s mom, a little bit after I decided, but I didn’t really care enough to read it for a few hours. Once I did, I noticed it wasn’t really that important – her store was having a sale on stuff, apparently getting rid of their extra Labor Day stock.

I thought about it.

The sun filtered through the window. I saw it slowly drift across the floor again as it rose. I thought about getting up by the time the sun was about to set. My room had turned bright orange.

I crawled out of my bed, put on a hoodie and loose jeans, (today felt like a no-bbra day), said goodbye to Rowan, and went outside.

The sky was a [strange golden orange](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAEaLMx2BSw), not like I’ve ever seen before. I spent an equal amount of time looking down at my phone screen, following the GPS to the store, and looking up at the cloudless, sun-colored sky. The town felt like it was simmering down – there were less people on the streets,  less families in the parks. Even the weather felt like it was shutting down for the night – there was no wind, no signs of weather, and the sun had disappeared beyond brick buildings.

I finally found the grocer, a strangely modern-looking building on a corner, between a layer’s office and a three-story bank. It looked like a repurposed convenience store, with glass walls and a sliding automatic door, but with new wooden floors and shelves. Outside was an empty market display that, judging by the hand-painted sign, was filled with apples.

I walked in, took off my hood, and looked around. It was pretty expansive – the kind of place that my mom would love to spend a few hours in...and, honestly, so would I. Most of the on-sale stuff was marked as such, but it was pretty thinly spread around the store – mostly drinks and packs of frozen, grass-fed meat. I didn’t know you could even make organic hot dogs, but they found a way.

I ended up getting only two bags of salt-and-vinegar baked chips, and grabbed a bag of Chrysanthemum seeds near the checkout counter.

Maria was behind the counter, with Albany sitting cross-legged behind her on a bunch of crates. She looked at me and smiled.

“Hey.”

“Hi! Glad you could come,” she priced out everything on an old paper calculator. “Guess you’re just putting your money back into us, huh?”

I smiled as I put a wad of cash on the counter. “I guess you could say that…”

She placed everything into paper bags. I looked around for a bit – I was the only one here.

“Sorry, this is…this is a bit rude, but do you get a lot of people?”

“Oh, yeah. Usually not this late, though,” she handed the bag to me and gave me a receipt and change. “Usually during lunch, but we pick up a lot during the holidays. We’re the only place on the island that makes _good_ vegan cookies.”

“Oh…”

“Actually, I’m probably going to have to start hiring soon…” she put her finger to her chin. “Well, my daughter’s coming back home from college in a few weeks, so that should be enough, but if you want to join us, the offer’s always on the table.”

“Thanks, I’ll…I’ll think about it.” I waved goodbye to Albany, but she just gave me a nasty look.

 

I walked back as the sun was going down fully. It was a quiet trip, until I got kicked on the side of the shoulder. My eyes went wide, and I almost dropped everything before I heard a voice.

“Hey.”

I turned towards Max. “Hey! You scared me!”

They shrugged. He was sitting on top of a brick wall, apparently build next to a grassy hill that as cut in half to make room for the road. They looked…different. In a lot of ways. They were wearing a loose white blouse, obviously…tighter than what they usually wore, and wasn’t wearing what they usually used to keep their chest down. They had on straight, black, formal pants, a pair of small heels, and their red hair was more curly and fluffier than usual.

“What’re you…doing here?” I said, quickly diverting my train of thought.

“Parents are at some political fundraiser at the hotel on main street. I got out and got a burger.”

They raised up a white to-go box.

“I have two, by the way.”

I looked at them, groaned, and climbed up the brick wall, sitting next to them. He opened the box and gave me a thick burger, with a slick, bright brown bun, grilled steakburger patty, and a lot of cheese.

I bit into it. It was delicious. There was a creamy, savory sauce between the individual patties, the cheese was mixed excellently, and the bun had been grilled with a generous amount of butter. It was moist, but not wet, and nothing run out of the bun, except for strings of cheese that dropped from the bites I took.

I made a few gross ‘mmmm’ noises as I chewed. “This is good.”

“Got it from Hipointe.”

“I’ll check it out.”

Max wiped some sweat off their brow, sighed, and unbuttoned the top few things of their blouse. I tried not to stare, but my cheeks slowly grew cherry red.

“What?”

“Nothing…”

They rolled their eyes. “Don’t worry about it. I kind of like this outfit. Just don’t like the circumstances.”

“What do you mean?”

“I just want to,” they wiped some more sweat off of their forehead. I guess I should be happy about being born in Tennessee.  “I don’t like the control. I don’t like that they keep pushing me into this role. I don’t want to be forced to be something that I don’t want to be. Won’t fucking tell them about it, though. Dad made a ‘ only two genders’ joke last night and I felt like throwing myself into a goddamn ornamental sword display.”

I nodded and thought of all the…bad jokes my dad’s favorite shows would make. “Sounds like it…grinds you down…”

“Yep.” They said. I noticed they had already began eating some of my chips.

“Hey!” I yanked it away. “I bought that.”

“I bought your burger, though.”

I grimaced. “Isn’t your bank account, like, a bottomless pit?”

“Yes, but,”

Both of our phones began ringing. Someone was voice calling our group chat.

Raul.

Max looked down at his phone, hung up, and looked at mine. I answered.

“Hello?”

“Hey!” His voice came over the phone’s speakers with a  bit of crackling. “Is everyone here?”

“I’m here. Julie ran into me.” Max leaned in and spoke into my phone.

Lilli groaned. “What?” She sounded like she just woke up.

“I’m-I’m at the hospital. Gabe was talking about someone getting admitted late last night with the same things Max had…” I heard shoes against tile – he must be pacing.

“Last night?” Lilli groaned again. “What the hell happened last night?”

“It’s Priscilla Hultuist. They found her in her bathroom at the party last night, they thought it was, y’know, alcohol poisoning, but she was in the legal limit,”

“Raul,” Max shouted.

“They found her, uh, laying in this puddle of…god, I can’t believe I’m saying this, they found some of that black stuff…”

“Raul!” Max repeated themselves.

“What?”

They took a deep breath. “What are we going to do?”

Lilli made a small curse under her breath. “I guess we’re going back in. Fuck.”

“It’s too late today…” Raul stopped pacing. “Tomorrow at..11. We go to the Theater and see if it’s what I think it is.”

I took in a breath of air and gulped. I didn’t think I’d…

I don’t know why, but I thought it wouldn’t happen again.

**Sunday, September 14th**

I felt like crap.

I don’t even like this girl. I don’t even know her. Why do I have to…

No, that’s selfish. You were given this power. Don’t be a bitch about it.

I flexed my fingers as I sat up in my bed. I saw vines grow between them before dissolving back into my hand.

Every day, it started to feel more real.

I told Rowan I’d be gone for a bit, and let him know I might get banged up when I came home. He asked if I was going to an underground fight club. I told him yes before walking out.

The walk to the Theater was filled with a weird kind of fear. Trepidation. Anxiety. Max’s dungeon was…horrific, but I could tell what was coming, I think. I came close to death a few times, but I knew…I think I knew what I was doing.

This time…I didn’t know what to expect. It was a bit…it was scary.

I tucked my baton and the two pistols depper into my hoody’s pockets. Maybe I should invest in a military jacket…maybe even tailored for my tiny body.

I finally saw the obsidian tower in the distance. It dominated the skyline of the town. The fact that I was the only one that could see it made it even…worse.

Lilli was leaning against the black walls, with Max – now in a jacket and thick pair of cargo pants – standing with her.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

We stood silent.

“So…” I touched my fingers together. “Who’s this…Priscilla?” I asked, pretending I didn’t know.

“Some girl,” Lilli grimaced. “Fucking prep. Might as well be the queen bee around here.”

Max shook their head. “I knew her as a kid. Mom and dad used to set up playdates for us. She was just a nerdy kid. Don’t know what between then and now. Changed a lot, though.”

“So she’s, uh, she’s part of the…upper echelons?”

Max nodded. “Dad does…something in Hollywood. I think he was an acting teacher. Mom’s out of the picture. They only settled down here a few years ago. The town used to be their vacation home before that.”

“Oh.”

Lilli rolled her eyes. “Rich stuck-up bitch. Not a whole lot to say.”

“Thought I said a bit.”

“Whatever.”

Raul’s rusted car pulled up, slowly sputtering to a stop. He climbed out, duffel bag and camera bags on his shoulder, some bags under his eyes.

“Did you sleep last night?” Max asked.

“Yeah,” Raul answered rubbing his eyes under his glasses. “I’m fine, I’m fine. Just stressed.”

“Well, let’s get it over with.” Lilli took out a butterfly knife from under her jacket.

“Oh, I brought the guns, too.”

I made an awkward little smile.

The lights in the theater were already on. We walked in, made a quick inventory check, handing out guns and weapons, and, at Raul’s suggestion, sat at one of the circles of couches to collect our thoughts.

“So, I want to lay out some ground rules. If this isn’t a one-day thing like the first few, then we need to have at least two days to recuperate.”

Lilli shrugged. I didn’t think that was unreasonable at all.

“Sam can bring us out, so if anything major happens, we pull out immediately. I can do some field medic-ing stuff, but I don’t think I can help that much.”

Max messed with one of the small gunlights I had purchased before hooking it onto their belt. I held mine tightly in my hand.

“Also, we should talk to Carter soon to get some insight on what’s going on. He knows more than we do, after all.”

“Carter?” Max asked, still fiddling with the light.

“I’ll…tell you later. Everyone ready?”

I flicked the safeties off of my pistols. Lilli played with her knife.

“Let’s go.”

We filed into the elevator and went down. Max was…surprisingly calm for this. I guess they had already braced themselves for whatever the Theater did.

Once the doors opened, we were immediately met with Sam’s face.

“Hello, friends! Julie! Raul! Lilli! Max!”

“Yep…” I shrugged.

“Hey, Samuel,” Raul gave him a thumbs up.

“You all look…armed,” Samuel gave us a brief look over. “What shall we be doing today?”

Lilli glanced at him. “Uh…some shit happened in our world. We’re going to…somewhere.”

“Ah! Perfect! I’ve noticed that the Orchestra has been bristling with some new energy. It’s positively bursting at the seams!”

I looked at the hunk of machinery in the distance. My heart skipped a beat. Max leaned over my shoulder, looking at it with a face of concern.

Samuel lead the four of us to the stage. He approached the levers and valves of the Orchestra. Raul gestured to Max to plug their ears.

He pulled the first switch.

The first thing we heard was the sound of two babies crying, descending into screeching, followed by the sound of camera shutters and film reels being spun. Laughter, glass clinking, airplanes. A young girl reciting something profane in a gibberish language. Tinny showtunes playing from a TV, some sounding like cartoons, some like movies. Several thousand voices, all sounding familiar and nostalgic in a way I couldn’t place. What sounded like pure noise, static and the roar of a car. Church bells, funeral dirges, slamming of doors and creaky cupboards. Chattering of young people, which soon grew to a yell, to a cheer. It first sounded muted, but then it sounded like it came right next to my ears. It grew into an invasive crescendo before stopping suddenly. The last sound was a muted, muffled crying.

I took my hands off my ears, half-expecting to see blood. Lilli took a deep breath, Raul examined his phone – maybe he was recording it. Max looked stunned.

The sound of pulleys came from overhead, another door being wheeled forward. It came from the left, and was much bigger than the others.

The face of a clown came down, a face screaming with either fear or joy. In his mouth was a single red door, and his eyes looked like giant googly eyes from a craft store. They were constantly twitching in different directions, being jerked around by unseen ghosts.

I felt sudden intense dread.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY COOL THINGS  
> My friend [Inkbee](https://inkbee.tumblr.com/) drew some [really fucking cool fanart of Julie](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/411547288708710400/453350924208046090/image.jpg) just in time for Pride! I really love it and it's pretty fucking great! This is actually one of the first pieces of fanart I've recieved for P:Unc, and I hope more come! If you happen to have drawn anything based on this, let me know and I'll be sure to feature it in here!  
> [Discord](https://discord.gg/sB7btgn) server, as always. Reminder that this is the best way to contact me, and that a pretty cool and tight community has developed out of it! We're still doing meetups Friday evening, and this week we might be watching the first part of Jojo. Everyone's free to join, as long as you're not a dick. Hope to see you!


	38. Step Right Up

The five of us stared at the freakish clown door, and it felt like it was staring back.

“Oh, Christ.” Raul said, taking a quick picture.

I stepped back, tightening my fingers around my baton. A cold bead of sweat dropped from my forehead.

“Really?” Lilli shot a look at me and Raul. “The fuck’s with Americans and clowns?”

“Uh…” Raul gave me a somewhat knowing glance. “Look, it’s…a common fear.”

“What’s a clown?”

We all looked behind at Samuel, staring innocently at the door.

“It’s…”

Max cut Raul off. “It’s a horrible monster that lures children to its lair before it eats them.”

“Shut up, Max.” Raul exhaled the gears in his head turning. “I’m not scared of clowns, but I’m just a bit worried.”

I closed my eyes for a bit, gently rubbing the button on the baton.

“We knew what we were getting into with Max. With this door…we’ll be seeing the fears of a complete stranger. We’ll have to be on our toes.”

Lilli made a ‘tch’ sound as she moved towards the clown-mouth-door. “The fuck she’s got to be afraid of? Priscilla’s some spoiled brat who don’t got anything to worry about. Think her mind’s going to be pretty clean.”

She twisted the door’s knob (which, for some reason, made a honking noise), and pulled it open.

Beyond the door frame was a subway car – rusted and rattling along a track, with complete darkness outside of its windows.  There wasn’t anyone else sitting down – at least, none that we could see, and every once in a while it bounced violently.

“What the – “ Max leaned in the door, looking around. “Woah.”

“Yeah, uh…” Raul tested the floor’s footing. Like before, it was hovering a few inches above the ground. “From here on out, not a whole lot’s gonna make sense.”

He leaped down, put out a hand for me, and helped me down as well. I…kind of appreciated the extra steps he was taking. I guess he wanted to make up for…that one day. And, I mean, he did see the clown show with me.

Max, Lilli, and Sam followed us, and, just like before, the door dissolved into nothing.

The inside of the subway was…I mean, it wasn’t clown-themed, so that was a plus. There wasn’t a whole much to see, I guess – unless you were a fan of tetanus, maybe. I did a quick walk around, making sure everything was fine, there weren’t any monsters…there wasn’t anything.

“Doesn’t seem to match.” Max mumbled.

“Clowns don’t belong on subways…” Lilli scratched her head as she gazed out the window. “I mean…you know. Whatever.”

Raul inched closer to the front door and felt the handle. It jerked a bit, but looked tight.

“Sam, c’mere.”

“Yes?”

Raul gestured to the handle. “You’re…strong. Can you get this open?”

He felt the handle of the door. “Well…I believe I can try…”

Samuel gripped the door with both hands and pulled, exerting a few small grunts, but it didn’t budge.

“Uh…what now?” I asked, wiping rust off my fingertips.

“I don’t’ know, we should – “

Raul was cut off by the sound of…something. Metal against metal. The forces of inertia started hitting my body.  The train began screaming and creaking.

I held onto the rail.

“Hey! Hang onto something!” Lilli yelled, grabbing the somewhat-ambivilous Samuel by the throat.

The train continued to speed up, accelerating at a nearly exponential pace. It kept running, to the point where I had trouble keeping my shoes on the floor – they kept sliding against the ground, scraping up against the grime and detritus. My guts felt like they were being twisted up and spun around, like they were going to shoot up my throat or tie themselves up around my spine. The speed was overwhelming – my head began hurting fierce. Only after what felt like two solid minutes of constant speed did I start to get the feeling that we weren’t going forward – we were speeding upwards on a curve.

Then it all stopped.

The train hit its brakes in an instant. My forehead collided with the metal bar, and everything went black for a second or two before I saw the light from the subway again.

I was laying on the floor, spine hurting, warm on my forehead, and the pole ending up between my legs. I carefully got out of the…awkward position I found myself in to look around. Lilli had ended up colliding against the front wall, with the door, while Raul was doubled over one of the seats. Max was laying back-up on the floor. Somehow, Samuel had managed to fall through one of the windows.

The only thing that had changed was the door. A light had appeared on the top – warm, pink, cracked. ‘WELCOME’.

“Everyone ok?” I called out.

Lilli rubbed her head. “Fuck, that…”

I touched my own forehead. Red stained my fingertips.

Crap.

“I feel fine!” Sam mumbled.

“Ugh.” I got up from the floor and put an arm around his leg and pulled. Everybody else seemed out of commission, so the job fell to me, I guess. It took a bit, but he soon came out. The majority of his head and mask was stained in the black stuff. Gross.

I poked my finger out of the window. I touched black.

Raul slowly rose to his feet behind me, using the seat as leverage. “Well..that’s one way to start stuff…” he groaned with every movement he took. “Max?”

They were silent.

“Max? Hey?”

I went over and kicked them in the ribs.

“Ow.”

“Get up.”

“Can I just stay down?”

“No.”

Max slowly turned over and struggled up.

“Well?” Lilli looked around. “What now?”

“I don’t know, let’s…” Raul felt the door handle again and turned it. It gave way immediately.

“Guess we arrived.” I mumbled.

Raul opened the door all the way. Behind it was a metal grate.

I groaned. “Oh, son of a…is it really nothing?”

“No, hold on…” Raul reached around the edge, then started pushing against it. “It’s…loose.”

He pushed it again, and it fell down, revealing dark air.

“Well, who wants to go first?”

All of our eyes fell on Lilli. She groaned and, without a word, put a foot on the door’s frame, and another on the air beyond it. She immediately stepped back.

“What?”

“Hold on, it’s…” She took a second to breath. “This is gonna feel real fuckin’ weird…”

She stepped out of the door, put her hands on the top, and somehow climbed out.

“Uh…I…” I took a big breath in. “I’ll go next.” I did feel safe with Lilli on the other side, and…I mean, I was more flexible than everyone else.

I tried to mirror what Lilli did, which was a bit hard since I was, like, half her height or something. I stood on the door’s frame, jumped up, grabbed the top of the door, and immediately realized what Lilli was talking about.

The gravity felt…like it was in her arena. I felt my body being pulled from two separate places – the floor of the subway, and what was downwards…wherever downwards was. My stomach started bunching up, and it only grew worse when I realized I was hanging by my hands, my feet dangling in two different directions. My fingers were holding something solid. I touched a bit, before feeling Lilli’s hand grab my wrist and pull me up the rest of the way.

“Ugh…that’s…”

“Yeah,” She helped me stand up, then looked down at the hole. “Hey, we’ll help you up.”

“What? How are you-“

Max stood on the bottom of the door. “This…this doesn’t make sense.”

“Yep. Welcome to nightmares.”

Lilli assisted Max up, then Raul. All four of us were prepared to get Samuel up, but he just kinda climbed up on his own.

“Now…where are we…” I looked around, trying to get my bearings.

We were standing on a metal grate floor, with small holes that clearly showed the black beyond. I looked up and saw an endless galaxy of lights, surrounding us and stretching far into the sky. We were contained in a small, thin pen, with metal pipes connected with chains, stretching into what felt like infinity one day, and towards a glowing gate the other way.

“Uh…”

“That’s the pearly gates,” Max noted. “Wow. Knew that crash killed me.”

Raul rubbed his temples. “Well, only one way to go.”

We walked in a somewhat claustrophobic line, with me trailing behind everyone. I felt the handle of my baton as we walked, feeling some cold sweat on my brow. The blood had dried – I guessed it was just a small cut or something. Hopefully I didn’t get tetanus.

I touched the air around us. It wasn’t long before I felt the surface of an endless black ocean.

We reached the gate after a moment of walking. The path widened enough to accommodate all of us.

The gate was…it looked like the entrance to an old-school carnival or amusement park. It had a bright, glowing sign, made of lit light bulbs, but the letters didn’t make any sense – like usual, my mind couldn’t really make heads or tails of what they were supposed to be, and the light seemingly coiled and twitched like a snake. The gates themselves were golden, maybe copper, and lit by spotlights.

“Hello?” Raul shook the gate a bit.

“Hey, careful.”

We were all brought towards the voice, coming from a small stand on the side of the path, made out of blue-and-red striped tarp. A part of it unfurled down.

Inside was a monster. Kind of.

It looked like a cartoon. He was thin, with clawed fingers and a triangular, pointed face. His skin was pitch black, but almost matte instead of the sickeningly slick and shiny texture We had seen. It looked more like skin, instead of just a beast made of black oil. He had red, semicircle-like eyes, sharp white teeth, and a baseball cap with the same striped pattern as his tent.

“Holy…”

Max reached out and touched the thing, but it swatted them away.

“I don’t get paid enough to be gawked at, alright?” The monster groaned. “Don’t get paid at _all_ , in fact. You want in?”

Sam burst forward from our group. “Yes! We’d love to see this world in detail. You seem like a promising hint as to what’s to come!”

The monster (ticket taker?) huffed. “Yeah, yeah, welcome to this world of magic and mystery. Look, I got a job to do. You want in?”

Raul made a contemplative face, like he was still processing what was going on. He tightened his grip on the back of his rifle. “I’m…not sure. How much?”

“How _much?_ ” The ticket-taker sighed. “Can’t you read the sign? Just let me know if you’re going in or not.”

He pointed to a completely blurry sign next to the tent.

We stood confused for a second.

“Uh…yeah. We’d like to go in.” I affirmed.

The monster nodded, pulled a lever inside the tent, and brought down the curtain.

The gates shuddered a bit before opening, creaking with every inch.

We walked into the park, or, like, I think it was a park. It took me a second of looking around to realize that nearly everything looked…off.

In  front of us was a giant Ferris wheel, constantly turning in the darkness, with a weird, glaring sun at it’s center that constantly twitched and spun around, with eyes scanning the horizon. It was impossibly huge, and the sheer scope of it made me terrified. It’s base was a castle, like the one at Destinyland, with golden brick and blue towers, the longest one meeting with the axle of the wheel. It was surrounded by stars, but after I second I realized that they weren’t really stars…more like…

I traced the metal grates we were standing on, and saw that they were curving up around us. I tried to make sense of the buildings around us before realizing they followed the curve, eventually disappearing into the horizon. The lights from the empty food stalls and raided sideshow games followed the curving of the floor, eventually disappearing into the sky and becoming stars. There wasn’t a night sky around us, but a thick, heavy, black fog.

The gate shut behind us. I heard the swelling of off-tune music come from nowhere, along with sounds of screaming. I didn’t know if it was joy or fear.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhh hey I'd really like to apologize about missing last week. My air conditioner broke last week around the time I was writing the chapter, and as a result I got pretty much no sleep whatsoever for about two days. As a result, the starting chapter ended up trailing off and decreasing in quality around the time I needed to upload the chapter, so I decided to wait until my air conditioner got fixed before continuing. Sadly, I wasn't able to catch up as much as I'd like, thanks to heat-related stuff and job search. I'll make sure to make next chapter as long as possible.   
> Also, I'm changing the upload dates to just every Monday instead of every 8 days, since I have a lot more time with school out and my vacations being over. However, I'm in the middle of a job hunt, so this might not last for as long as I'd like. Hopefully, this'll make it a lot easier for people to follow.  
> Link to the Unconscience [Discord](https://discord.gg/sB7btgn) server. Everyone can join up, as long as you're not a dick. Hope to see you there!


	39. Smiles and Slaughter

I stared up into the black fog in awe. I wasn’t sure if this place was just stretching into the infinite sky or if it was self-contained, but everything felt…heavy. Dense. The air, the dark mist above us. The air in my lungs felt like solid cuts of cold iron. The fog reached down and pressed my body, like I was stuck in a vacuum.

I checked the space around us quickly. We were in what looked like a small food court area, or, well, whatever this part of an amusement park was called. There were cloth stalls of food equipment and bags of…something, though I couldn’t see any real food. It certainly smelled like it, though – there was the oddly pleasing scent of cotton candy and kettle corn drifting in the air.

I walked to one of the stalls and leaned over, but there wasn’t anything behind the counter. I took out my flashlight from my pocket and flashed it around, but there wasn’t really anything. It wasn’t until I leaned out of the stall before I found something.

My flashlight started…shaking. The bulb began flickering, but then it went full-bright again. In front of me was a…shadow. It was completely black and still, but it was three dimensional. I circled around it, shining my light over it, but it was just kind of static.

“Wow.” Max put a finger on the shadow. To test something, I flicked my light off and took it away from the shadow. It disappeared completely, with nothing showing that it was previously there.

Lilli pointed her flashlight in another direction. “More of them over here.”

Sure enough, she panned her flashlight around the food stalls. There were entire families of shadows, all stuck in poses like pointing, hugging, eating something, riding on top of eachother piggyback…but, like before, once the light went off of the shadows, they seemingly disappeared.

“Well, let’s keep moving…” Raul said, moving ahead of the four of us.

We walked towards the castle in the center – really, the only thing that was clearly lit up. The path widened up a bit, with the stands giving way to medieval-looking buildings, but they were rusted and decrepit. Windows were broken, trash littered the metal grate floors, and it really looked like everything had been abandoned for twenty years. In the center was a stone fountain, without water, and several benches that had either been rusted over or broken. I kicked an empty food container away from my foot, but saw something underneath – a small, somewhat crumpled and dirty pamphlet, with scrambled and blurry letters. I picked it up and turned it around, dusting off some of the detritus from it.

It was a map – or, at least, I think it was. I opened it up and saw the main ferris wheel and castle that we were staring at, with blurry, scrawled text underneath it. There were four main branches sticking out, along with a thin line that we had probably came from. One of them was a giant circus big top, one was a large, spiraling water slide, and another was a freaky clown head popping out of the ground. The last one was a purple mansion with broken windows and blood-splattered grass, with a ghost emanating from the chimney. That last one filled me with dread.

“What do you have there?”

I handed it over to Raul. “Map.”

 “Looks like there’s four areas…water park, circus, haunted mansion…uh, clown…”

Samuel leaned over Raul’s shoulder as he studied it.  “Can we visit the last one first? Clown, isn’t it?”

“Hard no.” I affirmed.

“Water park might be…” Lilli scratched the back of her head as she studied the fountain. “I mean, ain’t no water.”

“Can we…check out the castle first?” I asked, soft as I could. The other four options seemed like absolute nightmares. I _hated_ water parks and slides, the haunted place brought up…bad memories, a clown was a clown, and the big top was probably, I don’t know, vampire werewolf demons or something.

Raul shrugged as he put the pamphlet into his pocket. We walked around the fountain, looking at the broken buildings and the black, frozen shadows that surrounded us. Max, as an experiment, walked up to one and poked it. It was apparently solid. Once Lilli took her light off of it, he was able to walk straight through.

On the other side of the town was a gate, right in the giant shadow of the [Ferris wheel and the castle](https://youtu.be/o9hh66orjfs). I noticed that the wheel had been slowly turning this entire time, and the sun in the axle slowly twitching.

“Another one…” I rustled the bars of the gate a bit. It was tarnished gold, scratched and bent in a few places. “What do y’all think?”

“Maybe we could climb it.” Max suggested. They grabbed one of the top rungs, put a foot on the other, and reached for another higher bar before…something knocked them off. They fell flat on their ass on the ground in front of the gate.

“Yo, what happened?” Lilli pulled Max back up, and we turned back to a gate right as a…noise came from behind it. The shuffling of brick and stone, and a strange, haunting gurgling.

Two large, black claws clutched the sides of the gate, and the same…thing from the front emerged from the bottom, a black creature with matte skin, red eyes, and a row of sharp, pointed teeth, a kind of cartoon creature that looked like it was drawn in 3D space with ink and pencil. Lines and strands came off of him, like marks or askew sketches. He had on a giant, purple top hat, with little else for decoration.

“Ah-ha! New guests! I hope you’re behaving yourselves and **ПӨƬ BЯΣΛKIПG ƬΉΣ ЯЦ** **l** **Σ** **Ƨ**

We stood in stunned silence.

“I, for one, wouldn’t dream of it. Rules are set for reasons, are they not?” Sam chimed in.

“Excellent! Exactly correct!” The monster grinned even wider. “I’m glad people aren’t being **ЦПЯЦ** **l** **Y** , it’s so much more hassle! I’ve already had to take care of one person for trying to break into Clarissa’s Castle early, it’s so…disappointing.”

Raul stepped back a bit, cold sweat coming from his brow. I couldn’t stop staring at the monster’s huge, gnashing teeth.

“Ah, silent types, huh? Well, I can only imagine the kind of shock this park’s vast splendor would put you in!”

It waved its arm around at the empty and ruined courtyard.

I was about to ask something – a question about Clarissa, why we can’t go into the castle, whatever, but my voice…stopped. The air in my lungs and my throat just stopped and dropped like a ton of bricks. I felt my throat just gag and clog up from nothing.

“Well, if that’s all, I’ll hope to see you soon! Enjoy yourselves!”

The monster retreated back under the ground. The air grew still. The air returned to my body. I took a deep breath. “That wasn’t…just me…right?”

Raul shook his head as he clutched his throat. “It’s like I was suffocating…”

Lilli coughed up something, doubling down. “Ugh. Fuck. Sam, how’d it let you talk?”

“Hm? Oh, I simply…spoke. Like normal. Why?”

I groaned and went back to the gate, still trying to get the hang of breathing. I gripped the gate again – it was completely shut. On the sides of the gate were two gears, corroded and weathered away, but still seemingly operable. There were two on each side.

Four sections.

“Hey, y’all think that…uh, if we got to the…the things, we’ll find stuff to open this?”

Lilli coughed again, but nodded. “Maybe. Ugh.”

“I’m just worried…he said that there’s someone else here, right?” Raul rubbed his throat as he spoke. “Where do you think they put them? Or…”

“Wouldn’t you know? Haven’t you done this stuff before?” Max turned to the castle.

“I…not really…” I shrugged.  “Hey, wait – Sam, can you find that one?”

“Find? I can…certainly try…” He walked into the center  of the courtyard and clutched his face/mask. “I see…I…”

His head began trembling, twitching a bit more than usual, and he recoiled away from his own neck before his shoulders slumped. “I…cannot discern…I hear thousands upon thousands screeching and bleeding, yet none rising above another…but I can confirm they are coming from those tall spires and the large wheel. All of them.”

“Freaky.” Max concluded.

“Looks like we’re doing the grand tour,” Raul opened the map again. “Well, there’s five of us. Should settle a tie breaker. I think we should go to the water park first.”

“Water park’s fine by me.” Lilli agreed.

I sighed. “Water park. Sure.”

“I kind of want to see if there’s any roller coasters.”

“Max, now ain’t the time for your weird roller coaster fetish.” Lilli cut in.

“It’s not a fetish,” Max asserted. “As far as you know.”

“Whatever. Waterpark. Let’s go.”

I pointed my flashlight in the general direction of the right. The water park was in the upper right corner of the Castle, so it’d be a short trek. Hopefully there wouldn’t be any monsters or…weird, personals demons. I still wasn’t sure how effective Puck was without any vegetation.

Speaking of which…Max didn’t have his Persona yet. I wonder if he’d awaken soon. He’d better, right? Otherwise they’d…

I took a deep breath.

As we walked around the circle, I kept noticing that the buildings kept curving. It wasn’t long before the castle and Ferris wheel were a bit askew from where we were standing. It confirmed what I was scared of – this entire park wrapped around itself in a sphere.

The path we were on transitioned from faux-medieval to more like a regular theme park. There were a few stalls and some lampposts, but everything was broken. I shone my light around and saw more of those black shadows hanging around. We passed by an open entrance for…something, an old-fashioned carnival sign with blinking lights and smiling faces, though the lights were flanked on both sides by freaky-looking clowns. I…guessed that’s what that part of the map stood foor. Soon, though, we were at a large entryway with giant waves, surfers, and cutouts of women and men in small swimwear. I shined the flashlight on the ground, seeing more shadows of people, though they were taking their clothes off, some already in swimwear.

“Huh.” Raul pointed his flashlight to a cutout of California near the entrance. There was a star on the coast. “That’s…Los Angeles, right?”

“Who cares?” Lilli rolled her eyes. “C’mon.”

We walked through the gate. I was half-expecting something to shut on us and lock us out, but it remained open. It continued the water theme, with dioramas of surfers, plastic undersea life seemingly floating in the air, along with glass bubbles and plastic coral. There was a small changing station, one for boys and one for girls, with cracked white tile leading in, along with the same-old trash littering the ground. Max poked a floating stingray with his metal stick. It shook a bit but didn’t fall.

The thing that dominated the horizon, though, was what looked like the world’s largest water slide. It was faded pink, lit by spotlights, and rose what might as well’ve been several miles into the air before sharply curving downwards, spinning in all kinds of impossible directions – including two full loops and a part where it shifted a full 90 degrees _upward_.

“If there’s a thing, a switch or something…” Raul panned his light upwards. “It’s in there.”

I gulped.

The pool itself was completely empty – just a spare sheet-metal hole in the ground that sloped downwards. There were shadows floating in mid-air, swimming, some in the middle of a dive. It looked pretty standard. On the other side was the slide, both the entrance and the end, where it deposited swimmers back into the pool.

“Y’know, maybe if we climb up, it’d be easier.” Lilli bit a part of her lip. “Hey, maybe we could use a Persona to just fly up there.

“Persona?”

I made a cautionary look towards Max. “We…we forgot to explain those to you, right?”

“Yep.”

Raul shook his head.  “We can get to it later.”

He took a step forward, but Samuel put out a hand. “Careful, now.”

“What? It’s empty.”

Samuel turned his mask to everyone, then walked until he was a foot away from the edge of the pool.

Something began rumbling.

There was a horrible sound of screeching metal and grinding gears. Before us, the hole where the pool was seemingly extended well past it’s current confines, stretching into what felt like infinity. The slide still remained in the distance, and the shadows seemingly stayed in their same place.

“How’d you know that?” Lilli shouted, but was cut off by Samuel again.

“Yet more lurks in the darkness here. Stay on your guard.”

I looked to our sides. A giant, metal wall had been erected on either side of us, and the pool itself was extremely long.

“Stay on your guard…” I repeated. Could I just…climb in?

Something didn’t feel right.

I dug in my pockets for some loose change, grabbed a penny and a quarter, and dropped it into the pool. They disintegrated violently in mid-air.

“Looks like the floor’s lava…” I sighed, but looked up. Raul’s light was catching the edge of a shadow, a small child’s elbow floating in the pool.

“Lilli? How big of a light can you make?”

“Why?”

I took out another penny, shone it on a woman shadow, and whipped it at her head. It bounced off harmlessly before falling into the air and disintegrating.

“I…yeah…” She stood still and concentrated, holding her head close as it became enveloped in white fire, but it slowly grew red and violent as it whipped off of her. Soon, Hippolyta was kneeling against her, before standing fully erect, bright red flame coming off her shoulders.

“Holy…” Max stepped back. “What the hell is that?”

“It’s Hippolyta.” Lilli smirked. “Persona.”

Hippolyta bent down and put out a clawed finger. Max grabbed it and shook it.

“Think Punk could help us?”

I thought for a bit. “Maybe. Not as good, but…”

I felt a inner force kick me on the back on the head. Sorry.

I took a deep breath and concentrated. I felt my mind become enveloped in thorns and vines, images of forests the size of oceans and flowers the size of the moon. My skin became plastic and vinyl before disintegrating into wreaths of leaves and petals. My vision split in two.

“You have one too?”

“So do I,” Raul sheepishly raised a hand. “Not sure he’d help much, though.

“His name’s Puck,” I smiled. “Uh, Hippolyta, what can you do?”

Lilli shone her light on a sihoullete of a man on floating. Hippolyta got the message, brought her hands together, and tore them apart, creating a wide, bright orb of fire, then launching it into the sky and creating a red-hot chain underneath it, like a tether. The entire pool became full of the shadows. I tested my foot on one of them, and it remained rigid in the air.

Max looked at the pool. “So…just cross like a video game.”

I shrugged, taking another foot and standing right on the man’s stomach. Puck dropped a petal, watched it disintegrate, and shuddered before taking a vine from his hand and wrapping my shoulder in it. I smiled as a thanks.

“We’ll go on ahead,” Lilli said. “Should be something on the other side to bring it right side.

I don’t know why, but even if I was playing extreme floor-is-lava, I felt pretty confident. The pool was packed enough with shadows that I could very easily pace myself – plus, Puck had my back. Lilli was jumping pretty easily, with Hippolyta following her with the chain.

I was about to take another step before one of the Shadows started moving.

It violently shook away, as was the one I was standing on. They began rippling away in a circle, like something was…

My confidence drained.

Three giant shadows emerged from the deep – giant, black tendrils that slowly grew upwards. They writhed and grabbed the sun Hippolyta had made, and within a second, it was dark again.

I tugged on the vine. Puck flew me upwards, and I saw pink petals grow around me – a flower. I poked through one of them and saw Hippolyta grab Lilli by the shoulder and fling her backwards, before creating another torch of fire and shining it above her head.

Lilli had a rough landing, skidding onto the ground. I landed in the flower, rolling around a bit. My pistols jumped around the inside, and I grabbed them just as they fell. The flower disappeared around me, and it took me a bit to re-orient myself to stand up.

“Where is it?” Lilli shouted.  Hippolyta kept the torch up above her head, standing uneasily on two of the shadows with her stilletos. “Hey!”

I flicked the safeties on my pistols as Don Pedro’s feet emerged above me. Raul motioned for Max to go behind him as he readied his rifle.

“What’s going on?”

“Some kind of…”

Hippolyta dodged a shadow tendril as it hit the area next to her, shredding one of the shadow bodies completely in half. She jumped again, narrowly avoiding another one, and began clutching the wall, her high-heels and fingers growing red hot and melting the wall in order to cling to it. The area around her began melting in the shape of a thick tentacle, but when she swung a fire-blade downward, it just struck the wall.

I remembered the how the shadows operated before. Puck flew above me and forwards as Don Pedro brought his sword down on the metal, creating an arc of metal into the pool, hitting nothing.

“Lilli! Light!” I shouted.

She shone the flashlight on her SMG around the pool, until it hit a solid sphere of shadow in the middle of the metal walls. She let loose with a solid burst of gunfire, and about two of the bullets hit the mark. The tentacle kept writhing around, closing in in Hippolyta.

Puck flew forward and let loose a vine towards Hippolyta, lassoing her and yanking her away. She was less than pleased, kicking at the fairy before realizing what was going on. She brought her arm backward, created a bow of solid fire, and launched a large volley of flaming arrows at several points of the beast, enveloping them in light. I thought that gave us a solid bead on it, but it quickly retreated back under the pool. The arrows sizzled out into nothingness.

“It’s…water, right?” I heard Raul guess. Don Pedro blinked forward into the air above the pool, charged up a burst of electricity, and launched it at the ground, but nothing happened. It didn’t spread around or conduct itself. He blinked backwards and began charging up his rapier with some kind of energy, creating a small field of light in front of him.

Hippolyta, undettered, strung four more arrows and launched them, but they hit nothing. One remained stuck in a diving shadow near the wall. It wasn’t until she strung several more that I saw the air around Puck and Hippolyta become enveloped in something black.

He grew a flower out of his back, and Hippolyta enveloped it in fire, They flew towards us, breaking a hole in the side of one of the shadow tentacle, but still without trejactory. Don Pedro reached out and grabbed one of the loose vines, throwing it at the ground in front of my feet.

“What the hell is going on?” I heard Max yell.

I grumbled something that didn’t quite make it past my lips.

“How the hell are we supposed to beat it?” Lilli kept sprawing SMG bursts at where the creature _ought_ to be, but either they kept missing the mark of her cone of fire, or the bullets that actually landed into the beast might as well not even counted. Raul unslung his rifle and shot at where Lilli was shining, but the beast shrugged off the .233 rounds landing inside it.

The ground above me was slammed by an unseen force, and began melting quick. Something touched my foot, and I felt an insane, searing pain course through my toe before I pulled it away and run towards Max and Raul in the center. Don Juan used the light from Raul’s gunlight to impale it right in the tentacle, which was the only thing so far to make it stop in pain – Hippolyta capitalized on this by creating a giant sword out of fire and slicing it in two.

I looked over and saw Lilli inching back towards us – a tentacle was apparently inching towards her, as the metal near her feet was rapidly melting into nothing. It wasn’t long before another one slammed down next to us.

“Run!” Samuel goaded us. He was far back.

“We have to get out of here…” Raul agreed. “Fall back!”

“What?” Max grabbed him by the shoulder. “It’s impossible?”

“There’s not enough light to keep it dead!”

I stood back, shone my gun light at one of the tentacles, and fired akimbo at it for a second – nothing. Lilli did the same, but the acid was rapidly reaching her sneakers, melting off the tip. She grunted in pain before tripping over herself, then falling back, shooting at the beast.

Raul ran backwards, trying to fire at where it was. “Max! Fall back!”

They remained silent.

“C’mon, we’ll find another way!”

“It’ll just keep coming!” Max yelled with a scarred-sounded throat.

The four of us were standing behind him as the tentacles inched towards his position.

“Max!”

He began breathing heavy. [“There’s…a way. There’s…”](https://aether-realm.bandcamp.com/track/tarot-instrumental)

Ｉ ｓｅｅ．．．ｙｏｕ＇ｖｅ ｆｉｎａｌｌｙ ｆｏｕｎｄ ｔｈｅ ｂａｒｓ ｏｆ ｙｏｕｒ ｇｉｌｄｅｄ ｃａｇｅ．．．

He clutched his head in pain, with a bloodcurdling scream, and doubled down. Tears of black streaked down their face.

“I feel…it’s clawing…at my brain…”

Ｉｆ ｔｈｅｒｅ＇ｓ ａ ｗｉｌｌ， ｔｈｅｒｅ＇ｓ ａ ｗａｙ． Ｅｖｅｒｙ ｅｎｅｍｙ ｈａｓ ａ ｗｅａｋｎｅｓｓ ｔｏ ｅｘｐｌｏｉｔ， ｅｖｅｒｙ ｏｂｓｔａｃｌｅ， ａ ｗａｙ ｔｏ ｏｖｅｒｃｏｍｅ ｉｔ．

I felt a burst of cold air come towards us. Max was standing in the middle of it. His jacket began shredding itself in the sudden blizzard until it flew off behind him. Their shoulders began filling with cuts and sharp slices, bleeding black. He screamed again, his fingers cutting deep within his skull.

“Shut…I…it hurts…”

Ｎｏｔｈｉｎｇ ｅａｓｙ ｃｏｍｅｓ ｗｉｔｈｏｕｔ ｐａｉｎ． Ｐｒｅｓｓｕｒｅ． Ｆｅａｒ．

Skin gave way to reveal blood-red muscle. His face began shredding itself, showing the tender red underneath, bare teeth and loose eyes. He screamed again as the cold winds eviscerated his face.

Ｅｖｅｒｙ ｏｕｎｃｅ ｏｆ ｐａｉｎ ｙｏｕ ｆｅｅｌ ｉｓ ｏｎｅ ｓｔｅｐ ｃｌｏｓｅｒ ｔｏ ｄｅｆｅａｔｉｎｇ ｔｈｅ ｅｎｅｍｙ． Ｔｏ ｉｇｎｏｒｅ ｉｔ ｉｓ ａ ｓｕｒｅ ｓｉｇｎ ｏｆ ｌｏｓｉｎｇ ｙｏｕｒ ｗａｙ， ｙｏｕｒ ｌｉｆｅ．

The tentacles near Max began freezing solid, slowing to a crawl. Flecks of flesh and sinew flew towards us as the cold air became thick and opaque.

“Get it over with!” they screamed.

Ｆｉｎｅ， ｌｅｔ＇ｓ ｆｉｎｉｓｈ ｔｈｉｓ． Ｓａｙ ｍｙ ｎａｍｅ， ａｎｄ ａｃｃｅｐｔ ｔｈｅ ｐａｉｎ ｙｏｕ＇ｖｅ ｂｅｅｎ ｂｕｒｄｅｎｅｄ ｗｉｔｈ．

“EDGAR!”

The spire of cold wind began growing upwards before dissipating into a cold snap. Max stood fully, before going limp. The two tentacles beside him were frozen solid, with another in-mid-flight above his head.

Behind him was a skeletal-looking man wearing a long, ragged coat, wielding a long, wickedly-curved saber. His entire body was thin and metal-jointed, with his chest being a long and jagged cage containing a single, beating heart, and his neck cutting off before the head. Instead of a face was a simple metal mask floating above his body.

Max fell forwards before picking himself back up. Edgar bent down beside him, sheathed his sword, and brought it up in a fluid, brutal motion. All three tentacles shattered.

“I…get it…now…” Max wheezed. He lurched forward, stabbing his own sword into the ground. There was a single, loud groan, then the pool shrunk back to it’s original size.

“Max!” Raul yelled, running before Don Juan to his friend. “You feel…”

“This rules.” Max said, before immediately passing out in his friend’s arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hell yes!! I bet nobody knew what Max's Persona was.  
> I know I have a few new readers as of late, so here's a reminder that Unconscience has a [Discord!](https://discord.gg/wXWrqYb) Everyone is free to join, even if you haven't left kudos, a comment, or even have an AO3 account, as long as you're not a dick.


	40. Quit Without Saving?

I walked over the metal grate ground to Max's unconscious body. He was still breathing, and there were small stains of black coming out of their nostrils.

"Should we pull out?" Lilli asked, allowing Hippolyta to dissolve into ash as she spoke. 

Raul nodded. "We're out one person."

Max's eyes twitched a bit.

"Yo, you fine?"

They nodded, and slowly rose up.

"How'd it feel?" Raul slowly pulled them up. "Jesus, you're pale."

"Felt like...it felt like some kind of spider in my brain. It tore it's way out," they said, wiping the black from their nose. "It feels more clear now."

I reached a finger out. Their skin was ice cold.

"You feeling okay?"

Max felt one of the veins on their wrist, but didn't answer.

"We're right here, though!" Lilli gestured to the giant, rusted slide. "Climb up there, pull the switch, pull out."

I looked at the slide, then back at Max. They were still standing, but kept rocking back and forth. Their eyes were half-closed.

"I'm totally in favor of going back and letting Max rest, uh..." I slowly raised my hand. "Y'know, better...safe than sorry?"

Lilli looked at me and shrugged. "Find Samuel, I guess."

We heard his voice from way behind us. "Hello? Is it all clear?"

"Yeah, you're good." 

We saw him crawl out from underneath a small drink stand, pushing away refuse and trash as he stood up. "I apologize, but when I saw the beast awaken, I got possessed by an unclear and strange feeling that I shouldn't be around that area anymore."

"I know how you feel," I said, trying to be friendly. "Do you think you could get us out of here?"

"Of course! It's a good thing I managed to save myself, or you'd have no way out. You'd most likely wither away and die slowly and agonizingly."

I winced. 

Samuel rubbed his hands together and clutched part of the air. Lilli elbowed Max and pointed to where Sam was, like she wanted them to watch.

After a big of struggling, Samuel ripped the air in front of him, creating a small gush of black blood that sprayed the ground. He wiped away the black, revealing the same purple door from before. 

"Ah! It worked again. Let us return and rest. One can only have so much thrills for one day."

"Uh, yeah. Not wrong." Raul shrugged. The four of us made our way through the door, one-by-one, with Samuel not far behind. We arrived in the lobby of the Theater, like before, with the door being only one-way. The moment Max walked through, they slumped to the floor.

"You good?" Raul knelt down and felt the back of their neck. 

"No. Let me die in peace."

"I'll drive you to my place to get changed." Raul rolled his eyes as he stood back up. "You guys need a ride?"

"I mean, we live in the same fuckin' house." Lilli groaned a bit.

All eyes turned to me.

"I'm...I'm actually good. I'll just...walk."

Lilli shot a look towards me. "You sure?"

"Yeah. I'm good. It's a short walk anyway."

"It's not, but, like, whatever." 

I walked over to the duffel bag and placed my weapons inside.

"Regroup tomorrow?" Raul asked. "At school tomorrow."

"Yeah, sounds good."

I pushed the doors open, getting hit in the face with the warm evening air. I pulled my hoodie up and shuffled away from the theater as fast as I could, trying to disappear before the others made it out.

Honestly, there was always something comforting about just disappearing into the night.

The sky was a warm purple, the sun half-setting in the distance. I passed by the cafe and saw that same shock of brilliant white hair, and tried to ignore it as best I could. 

My mind was slowly bouncing with ideas, thoughts. Personas, mostly. Priscilla, somewhat. I don't know anything about her - I still don't know - and I still didn't know what to expect. As far as I was concerned, she was still an alpha bitch, and someone I shouldn't care about. Nothing I've seen so far dissuaded that thought from my mind. Still, though, we barely scratched the surface, and it was a shame we had to jump out as soon as we could. At least I got out without a whole lot of aches for the first time in a while.

I glanced at small cluster of pink flowers.

What the  _hell_ was Max's Persona supposed to be, anyway?

I turned a corner around a small park, one with a fountain featuring a bunch of babies. I think I was only two blocks from my house, or, well, whatever the squiggly roads used for blocks. I waited for the light to turn green, and spent a bit thinking about Personas. For the longest time, I just kind of assumed they were, like...there. I didn't give it too much thought. But now, I felt myself starting to get curious. Half of me wanted to ask Igor about him, but, well...I got the feeling that I wasn't really able to contact him. I just had to wait for him to contact me.

I know Raul mentioned wanting to go to Carter tomorrow, but, well, I didn't see that happening. I think I should go on my own regardless.

By the time I had reached Rowan's house, the sky had become a deep, dark, blue, like an infinite sea on top of me. I saw a few stars and spent a bit just watching them twinkle before stepping in.

"Hey!" Rowan greeted me, sitting on the couch. "Glad your back. Did your friends give you a lift?"

"Yeah," I lied. "Sorry I wasn't here for dinner."

"No worries. You gave me notice, so I just kept your portion in the oven."

"Thanks."

"Oh, by the way, you got  a package. I put it on the table."

I nodded, walked to the dining room, and looked inside the stove. There was about half a pan of lasanga inside. I brought it out using some mits, touched the tip to make sure it was still hot, (it was), shoveled some into a plate, and sat at the table.

The package was from Nile, probably the gardening stuff I had ordered.

"Rowan?"

"What's up?"

"Is it a good time to, uh, plant stuff? Like...weather wise, climate, I guess."

"Uh...yeah, probably. Might not have a lot of time, but stuff'll grow." 

I took out the rose seeds and trowel. For a second, I smelled rose perfume, but I tried my best to shove it away from my head. I liked roses. Just not how they smelled.

My phone buzzed.

**godo job 2dy**

 

After eating, I bid goodnight to Rowan and walked up to my room. Immediately, I took of my shirt, bra, pants, and examined myself in the mirror. Again, no injuries, except some abrasions on my elbows, probably where I had landed and tumbled. It felt...it felt nice not to be covered in bruises and open sores.

Of course, the big, circular burn under my breast was still there, but it had stopped hurting. Some of the skin had become more smooth.

I plugged in my phone, threw on a loose t-shirt, and crawled under the covers. My room was as dark as possible.

I closed my eyes.

[My brain](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nr9fm99sdHM) was immediately burst open by surges of sheer violence. I felt straps against my skin, metal on my back. Being carried through an endless hallway, surrounded by bursting pipes flooded with black. Faceless beasts with bubbling skin dragging me through a facility of death. Thousands of feet above me, bodies being carted towards grinders, doors around me that showed blank-eyed men, women, children, being shoved onto horrible, needle-riddled machines that turned them into twisted husks. I felt the cessation of existence of all things surround me. 

I witnessed a vast and unfathomable landscape of horrible factories, engines turning forever, pipes and bloody veins draining the ground. Infernal facilities crawled across worlds with infinite legs, beings as tall as planets clambering across hills made of machinery and refuse, bodies upon bodies creating mountains of slick black gore. The sky was dark and cold, infinite dead stars spanning billions of dead galaxies that destroyed themselves and began anew in a cycle of permanent cessation. A spire twisted itself around the universe, spearing the sky and stretching into the unfathomable distance. Workers, slaves, beasts chanting and screaming along the drum-like toil and churning of the industrial hell, prayers of reverence and fear to a beast in the center, a fetus of the bastardization of man. It twitched and groaned, bleeding an infinite black, before beams of red light emerged from one head of many and the universe collapsed into a single particle.

I shot up immediately, sweating profusely, teeth clenched in fear.

The smallest hint of sunlight came from my window. Dawn.

My head felt like it was going to split open, but the moment I went to massage it, the pain dissolved into a simmering warmth that spread throughout my body.

Dreams shouldn't feel this real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hhughgh this one's really short i'm sorry. Last week was tough for a lot of reasons and I was pretty committed to just not updating this week before having a small burst of energy. Hopefully this is sufficient for now.
> 
> [Discord](https://discord.gg/wXWrqYb) link, as usual. Everyone who reads the fic is free to join, and this is probably the best way to keep in touch with me outside of AO3 comments. If you have any comments or concerns with the fic, be sure to join.


	41. All These Friendly People

**Monday, September 14th**

 

I was still shaken by…whatever happened last night as I rode to the school. I couldn’t get back to sleep – I was too afraid of being brought back…there. I couldn’t explain it as anything but Hell.

I almost immediately noticed a shift in mood once I walked through the foyer. The air felt…cold. In more ways than one. I felt shifting eyes and people holding their breath.

The corner that Raul, Lilli, Max and I had kind of annexed was empty, and I felt way too awake to sit down and wait. I hugged a column near a bunch of benches and pretended to play on my phone, trying my best to eavesdrop into the conversations around me.

"I heard there were drugs there. Someone must have..."

"...slipped, right? I think she was too drunk to stand..."

"...down, someone must have hit her and she..."

"...died, I heard, I think. It doesn't look too good for..."

"...her dad's house, but that girl said to have it at her..."

I bit the corner of my mouth, trying to hold my tongue. I didn't know Priscilla, I didn't know how she...went down, but, still...

I saw Raul out of the corner of my eye, ducked my head down, and wandered over to him, still holding my phone.

"Hi," I looked back at the crowds, waiting to see Lilli's pink hair or Max's overwhelming paleness. "Do you...know about Priscilla? At all?"

He shook his head. "Not well. I think Max might know more."

"What do you...know of them? Like...anything?"

Raul stared away as he thought. "Y'know, she's kind of...on a different level than anyone else. Part of this...clique, I'd say, bunch of the richest families on the island. Like, the one girl who's birthday it was, her mom's some kind of celebrity dentist. There's a dude who owns most of the private docks. People like that."

"What does Priscilla do?"

"What?"

"Like..." I twisted my backpack's arm. "Her family."

"Not sure. I know her mom's...off. Doing some weird stuff. Not around."

"Okay."

I looked to my left and saw Max standing with us, leaning back against a wall.

"Hey, didn't see you," Raul put a hand on his shoulder. "How're you feeling?"

"How did you guys feel?"

The two of us were silent.

Max reached up and felt the back of his neck. "Had weird dreams last night. Still feel cold. I think I should take a day to myself."

"Yeah, I wasn't planning to go back for a bit..." Raul looked around the lobby, but soon returned his head to our tiny huddle. "What'd it...feel like to you?"

"Awful."

Raul and I exchanged curious looks.

"Like something was chewing at my brain from the inside. My body felt like it was being torn apart."

He paused for a bit, staring at our confused faces.

"I felt every bad little thing inside my mind all at once. Then it all went cold. I thought I died."

Max looked at the space between us.

"I heard it's name. I don't know what it is."

"It's a Persona." 

Max cut Raul off. "Yeah. You three are throwing around that word a lot. I don't even know what it is."

I shut up, though I hadn't even started talking yet.

"I don't expect an explanation. Don't think you guys know either."

"Yeah," Raul sighed. "We don't."

I did another quick glance around the lobby for Lilli, and finally saw some pink hair by the door to the bathrooms. I waved my hand to try and get her attention, but I don't think my hand reached above the crowd's head. She still managed to find us. though, without my help.

Raul brought the four of us closer together. "So, between the four of us - how much do we know about Priscilla?"

Lilli scratched the back of her neck, rolling her eyes around as she thought. "Man, not much. Just another spoiled brat."

"I only knew her from elementary school. Wasn't here for junior high." Max shrugged. "Really changed, though."

I stared at the floor for a bit, trying to listen in the background for people's answers, even if they weren't a part of the conversation. "I don't...know that much, I guess. I just remember her, her friends, they made fun of me."

"Wait, really?" Lilli said, shocked. "Fuck, that makes sense, though. They're really vicious."

My mind flicked back to when I saw her making fun of that one girl with glasses. I remember her looking like she enjoyed it.

"So, here's what I'm thinking..."

"Did it hurt?"

"Shut up, Max." Raul groaned, but quickly returned to his train of thought, pushing up his glasses. "We don't know a lot about her between us. But we're, y'know, diving into her head. I think we need to try and source as much as we can about her before we go back in. It'll give us a better insight into what she's like, and, well, it'll help us understand what's going on in that amusement park."

"That's..." I twisted my fingers together, trying to think into the future and see myself doing it. "I think I can...make that work."

"I'll just listen in on folks." Max shrugged, already pulling out their phone. "Do you think recording would work?"

"Let's...not breach anyone's privacy."

"Suit yourself."

Lilli silently pounded her knuckles. "Yeah, think folks'll feel much more honest if you get up close, right?"

"Let's meet up, uh..." I tried to think of the school's layout. "Uh, that one vending machine corner at lunch. When we meet up."

"Works for me." Raul agreed. Everyone else nodded.

 

 So...first period. Who would know Priscilla in first period American history?

I looked around the classroom for someone who looked like a jock, or a prep, or something. I saw a dude in a red and white jersey - I think those were the school colors? He looked regrettably handsome and dreadfully bored.

I felt all my anxiety bubble up inside me as I approached, until it ended up boiling over and forcing me to sit down in the seat behind him. I pulled out my NuGame and pretended to play, but it soon turned to actually playing as I forgot my mission.

It wasn't until after class that I remembered what I was supposed to be doing. He had already left. I raced past Ms. Signe, who probably felt more than a little confused, and soon caught up with the dude. 

"Uh!" 

He turned around. He had been chatting with a friend of his, and both looked pretty confused. 

"Can I...ask you, you guys something?" 

I twisted around my backpack's straps. It felt like it was going to tear in half.

"Yeah, sure, I...guess?"

I nodded and swallowed some of the air that was choking me. "You...were you at the party yesterday? Saturday? Priscilla's?"

The guy and his friend looked at eachother. "Yeah, but we weren't there  _long_. Nobody was kind to the either of us, and way too much booze for my tastes."

"Wasn't there also drugs?" the dude's friend asked. "Y'know, like weed, uh...maybe LSD?"

"Probably. That girl could get any drug under the sun."

"Which girl?" I asked, heart pulsing a bit too much. 

"Priscilla. She's really shady, I think. Girl from California? Dad worked for Hollywood?  _Way_ too many red flags."

"C'mon, don't be mean," the dude's friend shook his head. "She didn't talk to us, but her friends were sure as he rude."

"That's true," the guy from my class rolled his eyes. "Anyway, why do you care? Not to be mean, of course."

"Didn't you hear?" his friend turned to the guy, his face a bit worried. "Priscilla blacked out or something, she's in the hospital."

"Oh, jeez, I didn't. That's what I get for staying off social media, huh?"

"I have to go to class, okay?" the dude's friend piped up again. "See you tonight. Don't tell this girl any more rumors."

They briefy hugged and he left, and the guy from my class turned back to me. 

"Uh, sorry, didn't mean to be rude to her. But I really don't know anything. She just surrounds herself with some mean people."

"I know, " I affirmed. "Thank you, though."

"Uh, no problem."

 

Okay. One down. Three? to go. 

I went to Physical Science. Today was a lab day. Not a lot of talking, but maybe the guy I was 'paired' with knew something. If I could get him to talk... 

I sat at our worktable. He was already there. 

" Uh..."

He looked up from the...cube puzzle he had. Really? 

"Look, I'm..." I sighed a bit. "Do you know anything about Pri...the one girl that, uh, passed out? At the party?" 

"Priscilla Hultuist."

He had never a spoken before now. His voice was suprisingly low and gravely for a teenager. 

"Yeah!"

He shook his head. "We were friends in middle school. Both in the anime club. She was...kind of like you."

My eyebrow raised. 

"Tiny, kind of flat, much more chubby, though," he stopped with his puzzle for a bit to look up. "Sorry, that sounded a lot more rude than I thought it did."

I poked one of my boobs. "Don't worry, I've noticed."

"Puberty hit her like a truck, though. You saw her, right?" 

I nodded.

"Swear she must've had plastic surgery done. I remember her dad worked in Hollywood, she must've pulled some connections."

"What did he do?" 

He looked up at the ceiling, sticking out his tongue. "Something...with acting? No, he was a vocal coach. I think he specialized in accents...what else did she say..."

I jogged it down mentally. 

"Her mom did something to. Wanna say she produced stuff? Never talked about her after middle school."

"Have you...talked to her?" 

"Nope," he turned back to his puzzle cube. "She used to be really sweet, though. I hope the crowd she's in didn't change her."

I nodded. 

"Sorry about the boob thing, again."

I sighed. "I forget they exist sometimes. It's not a big deal." 

I blushed. It wasn't until after I had said it that that I realized I made a joke.

The guy smiled a bit. 

"I'm, uh, Ray."

"I'm Julie."

 

Okay, one last class until lunch. P.E.

Fuck.

I went to the locker room and huddled into the designated Lilli corner. She wasn't there. I quickly sat on the bench and changed, then started waiting for her.

Then I actually  _saw_ her.

She was near that one girl. Sidney?

The two things clicked in my brain. 

I watched what was going on from behind a locker. They were speaking in hushed tones, but both were angry. Sidney swatted Lilli away, and she responded by pounding the locker next to her head. A girl - the one I recognized with the rose-gold phone was filming it the altercation with her aforementioned device before Lilli noticed and snatched it out of her hands. She slapped open the back, against the girl's loud protests, finangled with the inside, grabbed what looked like a SD card, and thrust the phone components back into her hands.

It was a bit cool to watch. 

She went back to where she sat, grumbled a 'hello' to me, grabbed her own phone from her bag, and sat down. 

"What are you doing?" 

She stared at the back of her phone, pulling out her card and plugging in the girl's. She turned it back on, went to an online drive app, and started quickly uploading files.

"How's it going so fast?" 

She smirked. "Chinese phones ain't crap."

Once the upload finished, she pulled out the card and whipped it back at the girl, now approaching. "I'll look through these in a sec." she whispered back. 

 

"Fuck, Danni really loved selfies."

I walked with Lilli to her next class - we were going to meet up afterwards. 

"Also...'sexy selfies'..."

"What?!" 

"She just has a folder of 'em that's, like, two gigs. Didn't even look, just deleted it. Not in the business of ruining her life."

I still felt uneasy. 

"Don't worry, most of this shit that's not about Priscilla's getting wiped."

"I still don't feel good about...what you just did. Isn't it an invasion of privacy?"

"You see all the shit that they take of me?" Lilli shot daggers at me. "Fuckin', every time I snap o, someone's taking video and putting it on world.tree. I can't do shit about it," she huffed. "I've wanted to do this for a while. Glad I got a good reason to."

I shut up. She said goodbye and went into her classroom. I stood by the door and thought about what she just said before leaving back for the bench that I usually spent my lunch period on.

I saw that kid in the trenchcoat and the one with the soda bottle glasses leaning against the wall.

I sighed and approached. 

"Hi, uh, I -" 

"Hold up," trenchcoat said. "Name?"

"Julie?" 

He nodded. "Rod," he pointed to glasses. "Guy."

Guy and Rod imched away from eachother, making space for me on the wall. 

I mentally rolled my eyes and leaned with them.

"What do you want to know?" 

"What?" 

Rod crossed his arms. "Guy and I know this school. We're the eyes and ears in the walls, the stairs are our spines, floor's our bones. Dig? Know everything amd everyone."

I thought for a bit. 

"Do you know about the party?" 

"Stacy Holberman had her weekly Steel Throne viewing party," Guy said, listing on his fingers, "Jaycolb O'Malley had a LAN party on Sunday, and Sidney Hunter had a birthday party at Priscilla Hultuist's house on Saturday."

I looked forward in stunned silence. "The...last one..."

Guy continued. "Gerry Colt and Charlie Jones broke up. There are two unconfirmed rumors about drugs being present and an unsourced photo purporting to be from the party of a bowl of condoms. The biggest happening is that Priscilla Hultuist fainted due to an unknown illness and was unconscious for two hours before being found and the police are called."

Rod continued. "No arrests, no foul play suspected. Seems unconventional."

I sat silent again. "How do y'all know so much?" 

"That's for us to know and you to not know."

I sighed. "Okay, okay, I...what do y'all know about Priscilla?"

Guy nodded. "18, Senior, moved from California before middle school, only recently fell into her current friend group. Posts on world.tree and Pixto are mostly reshares of her best friend's content. Little original stuff."

Rod continued from Guy's spiel. "Brought into principal's office four times for bullying, and two times for unethical conduct, but no suspensions or real punishment."

"Bullying?"

Rod scratched his goatee. "The charges were far enough across that it's tough to remember 'em, but the most recent one was for her and a friend keeping a girl from going to prom."

I nodded. "Sounds bad."

"Hultuist's pretty bad. Of course, both me and Guy hope she gets better."

Guy nodded.

I exhaled a bit. "Thanks, uh...you two..."

"Anytime, Julie. None of this leaves this wall."

"Of course."

I bid them goodbye, walked away, and looked back to make sure they weren't ghosts. They were still there.

 

I went to the vending machine hole a little bit before lunch ended. Max and Raul were already there, and Lilli wasn't far behind.

"So, I managed to source some things..." Raul looked at a pocket notebook he was carrying. "For one thing, she was pretty unremarkable in middle school."

"Yeah, uh..." I tried to remember the conversation me and Ray had. "Uh...I talked to a dude in my science class that knew her in middle school, uh...she was apparently kind of, uh, plain looking until freshman year."

"Makes sense."

"I remember the one time we went to the same preschool, she always had action figures with her," Max noted. "Nobody mentioned anything like that."

"The dude also said, uh...she was in the anime club in middle school?" I tried to think. "Y'know, it felt weird."

"Anime? Really?" Lilli eyed me. "Anime's for jerks. Why'd she be into that?"

"Uh, y'know...I think I remember something like that...I barely remember her from the classes we had..." Raul thought for a bit more.

"I noticed something weird," Max stated, waiting for all of us to start listening. "Everyone I overheard today was only mentioning the clique she's a part of."

"Yeah, me too," I tried to think back to the two dudes I talked to this morning and the Phantoms of Chelsea High. "They mentioned she was mean, but...I didn't hear a lot of specifics..."

"They probably just bled into her." Lilli groaned.

"I'm not so sure..." Raul shook his head, turning back to his notepad. "I talked to some people too...they were all kind of...it's awful, but they didn't seem to care that she's in a coma. Even when I said how bad it was. Maybe she was a bully? One of the bad ones."

I thought about that for a second. 'The Bad Ones.'

I felt my heart sink.

"Yeah, she's just an alpha bitch."

Even so, that didn't feel right..."I...someone today said she used to be sweet..."

Lilli eyed me again. "People change."

Raul's shoulders sank. "If only we could talk to her, clear this up..."

Yeah. If only.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uhhh hey i'm. really sorry about updating this late! The past few days have been super rough for me and the stress got to a near-breaking point late Tuesday. I'm better now, but it kept me from finishing this chapter to make it as good as it could be. Hope this justifies the wait, even if it's short. Next chapter will be on a Monday, like normal.
> 
> Also, just to keep myself grounded during these next few hectic weeks before school/work starts, I'm going to go through the fic's chapters and provide links/insight to where the titles of each chapter comes from. Hope people find that interesting!
> 
> Persona: Unconscience has a [Discord](https://discord.gg/wXWrqYb) server, for those who're into that sort of thing! Everyone's free to join, unless you're a dick or a jerk. Even if you don't have a AO3 account and can't comment or kudos or bookmark, you can join!


	42. It Turns Out There Aren't Many Perks of Being a Wallflower

#### Tuesday, September 14th

I woke up to my phone blinking. Apparently, Lilli had uploaded the pictures from that one girl's phone to a private folder in the group chat. I lazily flicked through them as I laid down in bed. Most of them were selfies - at the beach, at some dark party, at school...

She was usually in the background, sometimes looking at the camera, and only one or two were with the girl in the frame. 

The only one where she looked really happy was at the amusement park, on the ferris wheel.

That made sense.

I got up, got dressed, took some antidepressants, and sat on the porch for a bit before heading out.

 

When I got to the school, I felt...I don't know. Kind of murky. It felt like my head was chained to a heavy cinderblock holding it down. I didn't dream anything weird last night - just that I got run over by a car on my way to school and then dragged into it. It was normal for me...well, 'normal'.

I skipped the meeting before school. I...I just didn't want to go. I didn't want to drag anyone down while we're supposed to be confidant and powerful. I wasn't either of those things, anyway. 

I went in through the back door and climbed the stairs to my first class, walking through cold halls and seeing the white tiles and red walls become covered in metal and rust. Black figures stared out the doors and at me. I felt the crushing invisible force of the nightmare before snapping back to reality in a moment. Again, this was normal. One of the weird excursions out of reality I had been accustomed to and had managed to stave off for a little while since I moved here. Everything sucked every once in a while.

 

I avoided everyone as best as I could for the entire day. I checked the group chat - tomorrow was still on for delving back down, of course, probably later in the evening since I had that...thing with Ms. Signe. The test...thing. She made sure to remind me on the way out. I still felt heavy-headed, like my brain was full of sludge or thick oil. I couldn't keep my eyes open - not out of lack of energy, but just out of apathy. It felt like a shitty day and it had no reason to.

The sun was shining outside. I heard seagulls and boat bells. Cars, people, gentle wind against cloth and flags. I felt the presence of 7 billion people all alive at once, and even though I was one of them I still felt alien to everything going on.

I wandered around the campus of the school for a bit, brushing against handsome boys and cute girls and none of them really noticed me which, I mean, I never minded. I walked towards my bike, looked at the handle, and just sat down next to it, looking at my phone and it's empty notifications, except from about 2 from a number of a certain person that I never wanted to open. 

I looked at a GPS map of Lydon. Surrounded by water. My head still felt heavy and sluggish. Part of me just wanted to say fuck it, and the rest of my tried it's best to shove it down. I didn't want to do anything. Not nothing - nothing was still doing something. Doing nothing meant contemplating and thinking. If there was a God, and if this nightmare stuff was tied to Him, if the Persona stuff was - what even was the Persona stuff...

I wanted to just shut down and sleep for the rest of the day, but my mind was too restless and heavy. Like ants were crawling inside it.

I felt like I blacked out, though I knew what was going on. I biked a short bit form the school to a park and sat on the curb for a bit, watching cars drive by and people walk around me. I smelled exhaust and salt from restaurants. I didn't get hungry.

It wasn't for a little bit until I walked around me and sat on a bench facing a tiny little fountain. The water flowed from three small geysers before it fell into the pool at the bottom. I watched it fall at the top and scatter into the water below. It felt like me right now, which is a pretty stupid way to describe it, but whatever.

Why do I feel like this, anyway? 

I flexed my fingers, hoping to see vines or flowers, but I saw nothing. It was just my tiny, weak hand. I didn't feel magical - y'know, I never really did. Even after Puck, after saving Max...what did I feel? Brief rushes of confidence that quickly ate itself and returned to making me feel the exact same way. I doubt saving Priscilla would even make me feel any other way. I'm just saving some alpha bitch - even if she did hate hanging out with her friends, it doesn't mean she's anything but a smug asshole.

I hoped that she didn't join.

I felt the ants in my head shift forwards. God, what was I saying. I hated how selfish I could be sometimes...I don't even know this girl...

The water kept flowing up and down. There wasn't a lot of other people in the park. I guess that was good - I must look really empty headed right now.

I grabbed my backpack and walked back to my bike, sitting on the seat for a bit and watching more traffic. This town wasn't as sleepy as my mom told me it was, though, well, it was a bit of a resort town...I bet those were just tourists. I started to read more and more about the fall color thing that this town was known for. I guess I better get used to it...though, I always felt like I'm used to beng treated like an animal in a zoo.

I looked at the map again, looked at the general area where Mr. Carter's house was, and very quickly looked in the opposite way. 

I started pedaling home. I saw the theater in the distance, towering above all other houses. It felt...it felt...

I skidded to a stop and looked at it. I watched it's black stone glisten in the summer sun and the gold etchings sparkle with what might've been life.

A strange thing that came from nowhere, giving the illusion of life, but all it harbored was hatred and fear. Against all odds, it shouldn't exist, and it shouldn't even have been there in the first place. It came from nothing. It drove all who saw it into despair.

Black ash flew up into the air every once in a while. The lights flickered, beckoning me.

I stared at it for a good while.

It felt like me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter probably has more typos than normal. I wrote the vast majority of this on my phone, since this past week and weekend was especially hectic for no reason. I really wasn't able to get on my laptop for anything more than Civ VI and some Enter the Gungeon runs, nor could I get in the mood for writing. I won't lie, though, writing on my small phone with my finger felt a lot more natural than on my big, clunky laptop. Maybe I should invest in a netbook?  
> Also, sorry for the filler-quality of the past few chapters. Like I said, life's been way fucking hectic and I wish I had more time to spend to write, since it's one of my favorite tools to calm down. Next chapter should be good and full of content.
> 
> Link to the Persona: Unconscience [Discord](https://discord.gg/wXWrqYb) server, as always! Look forward to seeing new people. Make sure to introduce yourself in the general chat. Also, it's the best way to keep up to date with what's going on.
> 
> Title: [Great Wight - It Turns Out There Aren't Many Perks of Being a Wallflower](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NLQugll33I)


	43. Don't Waste Time Doing Things You Hate

#### Wednesday, September 15th

 

Today was going to be a long day.

I only realized that after I woke up, got dressed, took an antidepressant, got on my bike, rode to the school, and stood in front of the doorway.

Today was both my first meeting with Ms. Signe _and the_ second delving into Priscilla’s mind.

I wasn’t sure which was worse.

I thought for a second or two before deciding to go to our initial meeting this morning. I didn’t plan on answering why I wasn’t there yesterday – just pretend it wasn’t a thing.

I mean, I didn’t really remember anything yesterday. It might as well have not been real.

I navigated the halls once again, ignoring my memories of rust and blood, ignoring most others that were in the hallway. Once I got to the lobby, I sat down in our spot, backpack on my lap, and waited for everyone.

Max was the first to come, but he didn’t say anything – he just sat down next to me and nodded before turning to his phone.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

I rubbed my thumb between my fingers and kept to myself. I was worried. My heart was beating faster than I was used to.

Raul soon entered my field of vision. “Hello.”

“Hi,” I said, still hiding behind my backpack.

“Everything still good for tonight?”

“I…might be a bit late…” I said, still rubbing my fingers together. "Uh...I have...something after school. A test thing."

Raul shrugged. "We can wait."

"Having more time to prepare might help." Max agreed. 

"Let me know when you're done."

Lilli poked her head above the crowd like a groundhog before creeping over.

"So, uh, two things - more like one, uh..." she started, taking off her backpack.

I poked my head around my bookbag as she placed hers on the table, motioning us to come close. 

She pulled out an entire cake of fireworks from her bag. It must've been a full foot across.

"Jesus!" Raul looked around before pushing it back down.

"What? It should help tonight, right?"

"Yeah, but - " Raul looked around again. "Why not go back to your house after school and get it?"

Lilli stared at Raul blankly.

"Honestly, I think bringing fireworks to school is dope as hell. You should keep doing it."

We all stared at Max, who just took a drink from their thermos.

"Not so loud." Raul yelled-whispered at him.

Lilli just looked back at the fireworks in her bag. "Fuck."

 

 The rest of school wasn't...really anything. Or, at least, nothing that I noticed. I must've been vibrating with anxiety.

Ms. Signe said to meet me in the library after school. I...kinda knew where it was. I lurked around the school, trying to find it, but it took a few laps, and one lapsed judgement resulting in me buying a bottle of Cheerie. After a bit of wandering, though, I finally came across it -  a door labeled (what else) Media Center, with a flight of stairs going downward. This was on the first floor - was it in the basement?

The stairway down was covered in educational posters and stuff for the school, including a map of the US and the world, with small thumbtacks in a little receptacle underneath. According to the paper cut-out letters above, it was for students to say where they had been or had come from. I noticed a blue tack on the underside of China, and, on the US side, one from California. The rest were pretty scattered, though there was a cluster around New England. However, the green ones for vacations were all over the world. Some in the Carribean, at least 5 in Japan, a large bunch in Sweden, Britain...all the rich parts of Europe, pretty much.

I took a blue thumbtack, stood on my tip-toes, and pushed in into the state of Tennessee before moving on. I took the steps down, turned the corner, and walked to the front desk of the library. It was pretty small, but was well-stocked with books and magazines. The center was dedicated to computers, which looked a year or two newer than the ones at my old school. It all seemed fairly stacked.

Speaking of...that, I saw Ms. Signe leaning over the counter on the other side, talking to a nebbish-looking Asian man, who, I guess, ran the place. I debated in my head for a bit, then went over. 

"Ah, Julie!" Ms. Signe exclaimed, probably to most of the library. "I have procured us a small room to study alone in. We should be fine! I brought most of the materials we will be using."

"That's...good." I nodded.

"Let's go! Goodbye, Frank."

Frank - probably the Asian man - just sighed and returned to his computer.

I followed Ms. Signe past the computers and into a small room near the corner - one that was windowed in every way it could be, of course. There were two computers, a long, wooden table, and about six desk chairs, along with some sign-in sheets and an old projector near the wall. This was probably where people made up tests or just went to get work done. Ms. Signe sat down in one of the desk chairs, but, after looking out the window, she got back up and pulled down a pair of blinds. I guess she was distracted by the glare from the library, but it just made me more distracted with her.

"Come on, sit." she instructed, pointing to one of the empty chairs. I did as she said, and she sat...fairly uncomfortably close to me. I...I started to feel a bit anxious, especially...she closed the blinds, but...I...no, she couldn't...

I gave a bit of an awkward sigh and scooted my chair away. She didn't pursue.

"So, Julie..." she leaned forward, trying to catch my attention. "We do not know a lot about each other? Hm? Tell me, why are you interested in history? It's not...typical of a girl your age, is it?"

I fiddled with my thumbs, trying to avoid her eyes for a little bit. "Uh...I...my, my great grandfather...I guess...and my grandpa. Both of them were veterans - on my dad's side, they were both veterans. "

She nodded, with a gentle smile on her face.  "So, they taught you, then."

"No, uh...not really. They weren't...in my life long. But I just, got interested in their legacy...I guess..." I kept fidgeting with my fingers. "It's nothing, really. I don't think...I think that's a normal way to, uh, I think that's...how most people..."

I felt a sharp slap on the back of my neck.

"Do not put yourself down!" she said, pouting. "You have a passion! Own up to it! Do the scientists at the big Higgs-Boson corridor think they're doing child's play?"

I rubbed the back of my neck. "No, I...sorry..."

I felt another slap.

"Ow!"

"You do not apologize!" Ms. Signe continued to (somewhat playfully?) pout. "Why must you put yourself in the dirt like this?"

I shrugged. "I...I don't know. Can you stop slapping me?"

She looked at her hand. "Oh! Yes, can't do that in American schools..."

"Uh..." I twiddled my thumbs a bit more. "I...was kind of wondering, why did you come here, anyway? Isn't...aren't Swedish schools better?"

"Yes! Very much so!" she nodded enthusiastically. "American schools are so sad. Nobody cares! But you have the Civil War, the Revolutionary War, Korea, Vietnam...plus both World Wars under your belt!" She began smiling. "American history is so much more interesting than Europe. So much, so much to remember! We only were taught about my country's wars, Medieval Scandanavia...so boring. Nothing of note. I got so tired of Charles XIII...I swear!" 

She crossed her arms and leaned back, smile still on her face.

"But, even as a little girl, I was so fascinated by America! Prohobition, the Clutch Plague, the Mafia, fighting for liberty and justice for all...plus, metal! Sweden has great metal, but America knows how to screw around with it."

I paused. "Metal?"

"Metal! You know..." she mimed strumming a guitar. "So much of it! I love pop music, too. And jazz!" 

I nodded, planning to just let her keep talking for a bit more. She was really enthusiastic. And...well, her beauty helped my patience a bit.

"America is the birthplace of a lot of what I love, you know? Your culture is so vibrant and so...emblematic of what you are! You're a lively people, even if you have problems and...bah, your President could use some work." she shook her head. "But I still love it. So, once I finished college, I came on the first flight over! I wanted to become a senator, but...well, I'm a little bit foreign, eh?"

"Uh, yeah...I guess you are."

"Then, I decided to be a model. I was for a bit, in college, but here was going to be better! Bah, that fell through. So now I teach! I do love it, though!" 

"You'd make a..." I said, before catching myself. "I...okay. Uh...I...for a while, I thought about becoming a teacher...I want to be, uh, a..."

"Hm?"

"It's silly..." I sighed. "I want to be an FBI agent, now, but I don't think that'll happen."

"Why not? Look up!"

Well, I'm probably going to die before I turn 18 while fighting literal nightmares. I just groaned in response.

"Hm. Well! We know a bit more about eachother!" she clapped her hands and smiled. "Let's work on studying now, hm?"

Ms. Signe reached down underneath her and pulled up a leather messenger back, studded with buttons from various bands and movies, some of which I heard of. She dug around a bit before pulling out a large, blue notebook, labeled with the Massachusetts state seal and a bunch of numbers and letters.

"Here is the honors program thingie. It has what should, might, whatever will be on the test. They randomize each test to prevent cheating, so we must go through it all!"

She put it on the table, where it landed with a noticeable  _thwack_ , and pushed it my way.

"Go on, look in it. See what you think!"

I cautiously pulled it towards me and flipped to a random page. One was a question about the causes of the Spanish Revolution, the other was a question about the Kent Massacre. I flipped through, and each page was a paragraph-long question about things in history, with multiple points to each question that I was expected to answer. About a quarter of it I didn't even know.

"How...many of these are I supposed to know?"

"Hm...ten, I think!"

I gulped.

"No worries! You will do great!" She hugged me. "We can start now, if you'd like, or we can do more next week."

"Uh...I..." I quickly checked the clock. "I think I have to go for a bit, now...actually, like...for the evening."

"No worries! Take the book and let me know tomorrow what you need to focus on. I will see you then!" She reached out her arms. "Hugs!"

I said goodbye and left.

 

**On my way to theater**

I quickly paced my way outside the school and walked my way to my bike, got on it, finished the last of my soda, and began pedaling. I tried to block out all my thoughts. I tried to forget about the carnival, the nightmares, Personas...but that's where I was heading. It was like trying to pretend I was dry while running through a thunderstorm. 

It sucked.

I felt my phone buzz, but it wasn't until I got to the Theater (with Raul's car out front) that I checked it. Of course, it was just a thing from Raul saying  **OK**. I sighed and put it back, took several deep breaths, and headed in.

Lilli, Max, Raul, and Sam were already there, sitting at one of the circles of couches. There was some bags in the center.

"Julie! What do you call this..." Sam held up an unwrapped burger. "Thing?"

I walked closer. "That's a hamburger."

"It smells good."

"Yeah, try eating it." Lilli poked at the skin underneath his mask, but he suddenly and forcefully swatted her hand away. He stared at her with his empty, black eyes for a few seconds before snapping his vision back.

I sat down, and Sam handed me the burger he was holding. I scarfed it down, since I haven't really been eating for the past few days. I didn't even take time to admire whatever flavors it may had.

"That was a good waste of time," Max stood up and picked up his lawn-ornament-sword. "Not that I mind."

Lilli gestured for him to sit back down, mouth still full of food. Her cake of fireworks was next to her - I just now noticed it was covered in plagiarized Destinyland stickers.

"Comeon, finish up." Raul poked Lilli's stomach. She stomped on his foot.

"Don't fuck with me, I'm in a bad mood."

"When aren't you?" Max groaned.

Raul nearly fell of the couch in pain.

"Can we..." I was about to say something, but just closed my throat and stood up. 

"Alright, alright..." Lilli took off the top of her soda, downed the entire cup in one gulp, shook her head a few times, and stood up. "Let's go to work."

 

The clown door was still there, but it entered in front of the [main gate of the castle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9hh66orjfs&feature=youtu.be) this time. The air was noticeably heavier than usual, and the fog inside the park-sphere felt...thicker. Somehow. Even more dark than it dark. If it weren't for spotlights illuminating the castle and the Ferris wheel, it probably would've been obscured completely.

"Alright, first off..."

I hiccuped.

Raul gave me a gentle glare.

"Sorry."

"So, yeah, those pictures..." Lilli interrupted him just as he was about to pick up again. "Not a lot to go off, but...I dunno, but it seemed like the only time Priscilla was enjoying herself was at the park, right?"

Max kicked an empty bag of cotton candy into the air. "Imagine that."

"Hold on..." Raul bounced his leg for a bit as he sat on the empty fountain's rim. "She was smiling on the Ferris wheel, right?"

I looked up.

In one of the cabins of the spinning wheel, there was a dim, warm light.

I pointed to it as it spun around the center of the sphere. "She might be being held in there."

Raul looked up, then jumped to his feet. "You're right! That's the kind of rules this place'd run on, right?"

"Speaking of rules..."

The fountain began filling itself up with the black blood, and soon became completely covered in it. It began rippling, but suddenly, the one giant, black figure from before - the one ringmaster cartoon thing - sprouted up from inside. It was towering compared to us, a height impossible to place, but tall enough to dominate the five of us. Sam stood unwavering while the rest of us walked back.

"I hope you didn't forget our arrangement! In order to gain access to Clarissa's Castle, you must make sure you visit the four areas of the park! Now, I went ahead and gave you the water park - you did quell the demon within - but you must be sure to search each part **ƬΉӨЦЯӨЦGΉᄂY.** Don't delay.  **ƬΉΣ PΛЯK ЩIᄂᄂ ᄃᄂӨƧΣ ƧӨӨП** , after all."

"Close?" Sam asked, turning his head downwards. "I like it here."

"Well, doesn't that make my little heart flutter!" The monster shot out it's cane and tipped Sam's chin up. "But all things come to an end. Childhoods, relationships, lives...don't take it for granted."

The monster ringmaster's head twisted inwards for a split second.

"She's going to die if you don't finish quickly."

Suddenly, the monster's entire body dissolved into a fine, black powder, the color of shadow. It fell into the black surrounding the rusted metal-grate floor.

We stood stunned.

Lilli nodded to nobody. "You heard him."

I glanced towards her, but quickly averted my gaze.

"What?" She turned to us. "Look, this ain't funny. I don't like her, but I ain't gonna have blood on my hands. Let's get moving, dipshits."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I'm going to stop apologizing for late chapters, mostly because...well, if you're into this fic, you'll find it and read it anyway. Not everyone uses Central US Time.  
> (For those wondering, or not on the Discord, the past three chapters have been late or shorter than normal because we had to prepare for my family from Pennslyvania visiting, and I was suffering up until late this afternoon. This isn't going to reflect my current plans with Unconscience updates going forward.)
> 
> [Link](https://discord.gg/wXWrqYb) to the Persona: Unconscience Discord, as always. It's still the best place to come if you want to know if a chapter's going to be late, or you want to yell at me for making short shit the past few times. Also, we're still getting together at the end of every link for voice chats - if you wanna try out a cool, slowly growing community of cool pals, feel free to join!
> 
> Title: [And So I Watch You From Afar - Don't Waste Time Doing Things You Hate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSn68GYmM-M)

**Author's Note:**

> Here's a story I've been working on since June 2016, which hasn't left my head since. I really tried to capture the elements of a SMT: Persona game while also preserving how the narrative feels, so expect things like Personae, Social Links, dungeons, and things beyond humanity's comprehension to make an appearance soon.
> 
> The story will have certain pieces of music linked in-text, mostly as my attempt at a unified soundtrack. Expect punk and (mostly) hard alternative!
> 
> Also, this fic will have full illustration for characters and Personae! They should be ready to be included by the the time the second/third chapters are uploaded. Unless otherwise stated, all art assets were created by http://richynepp.tumblr.com/.
> 
> Tags and the story summary will be expanded as the story progresses. Full disclaimer, there's some mention, and sometimes even portrayal, of stuff like bullying and assault. When those times come, I'll be sure to put up content warnings.
> 
> I hope everyone enjoys reading it as much as I did planning it out!


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